Tommy Westphall

I've never watched St. Elsewhere.  However, I know that the careers of David Morse, Denzel Washington, and Ed Begley Jr. were launched by the show.  I also know about the finale and Tommy Westphall, the son of the main doctor.  It turns out the show was in his imagination (spoiler alert, right?) this entire time.  Interesting enough, St. Elsewhere had a direct connection to Homicide: Life on the Street, which has many other connections, in part thanks to Detective John Munch's presence (his move to SVU, and his cameos on The X-Files, The Wire, and even Arrested Development).

Westphall was also autistic, which might not be a surprise considering the extension of his fictional universe.  Thankfully, someone came up with a chart and a theory about the "Tommyverse."  It's more than a cool finding, if you ask me, considering the 282 interconnected shows.

Click for the extreme close-up.

I Can't Decide

One thing that some aspies have more problems with than others is decisiveness.  I even have that issue on deciding what to write for this blog some days, hence weeks without posts.  Well, that and time.

I was confronted with a decision on what song I should continue to work on for the upcoming music project that I will release next month (self-promotion moment).  I've been told the beat tape should be longer, but I'm afraid of releasing lackluster tracks on it. Not sure what would be better when I weigh pros and cons, and I might still think about it once released.  There's another time I was considering a fantasy baseball trade and took advice from three others on if I should pull this off...and let the deal stall for weeks before nixing it.  This is fantasy baseball we're talking about and I couldn't make a decision on if my team would be better.

My issue with decisions really comes from a simple desire above all: to do the right thing.

Somehow the supermarket isn't as confusing.
Mainly because I know what I want already.

I hate being given too many choices; the more equal choices I have, the harder it is to pick one. I get scared when I'll choose what is the "wrong" one and suffer the consequence of regret or blame. For years, I was almost always about chicken meals at restaurants, particularly fast food. I didn't want to make the tough decision in that case, and thankfully I did not have to.  I know what works, if I stick with that, then I can't make a mistake.  I think that's also a small part of what made me so good with learning maps and following routes after repetition.  It's "kind of like a rat learning a maze," to quote something I saw on the Wrong Planet forum. If I follow familiar and tested routes, then I'm less likely to hit a dead end and collapse from anxiety.

The reverse is when I act on impulse. I sometimes act because there's a need for me to do something right away, going back to a need to prove myself.  When driving, I'll make a rash decision on what direction to take just to show others that I know exactly where I'm going, even though my "human GPS" tag only applies to places I've studied on the map for a long time. I've also made some rash decisions at work to show my value, which hadn't consistently paid off.

The decision to me, is more of a validation, to put it in blunt terms.  I want to be right for myself and everyone else and show the world what I can do.  All interconnected.

1 in 88

Here's a nice blog post that I saw on a mostly political website, but concerning the new findings on autism.  Is it really that high of a ratio/percentage now?

Can I also note how intriguing it is that the study came out with World Autism Day around the corner?

Beware The Ides of March and Handling Other Superstitions

Yeah, I'm probably more superstitious, in a less conventional sense, than some people due to my OCD tendencies, which was worst as a child.  I'm not one of those who is bothered by Friday the 13th or walking under ladders on any day. However, I did have a huge problem with stepping on sidewalk cracks when I was younger...or stepping in driveways when cars rolled by.  I didn't get upset when these things happened, but I tried all I could to avoid taking such actions.

I get as paranoid as the next guy when it comes to places I go, but surprisingly, I'm not as much for true superstition.  Ghosts never fazed me because of the reality conflict.  I also didn't have much of a thing for bed monsters.  My biggest superstition as a child was putting worry men under my pillow.  I had those things at night believing worries could haunt me.  Of course, they still do.  If anything, I was more curious about debunking superstitions than I was scared of them.

Pretty much anything else, that could be added to a separate post, would count as obsessive, but I doubt it is a form of superstition.

When I'm That Guy Who Just "Watches"

Last night I took part in a Groundhog Day celebration, and drank my share in what was a very fun night.  I didn't quite feel sober enough to get home around the time that others were leaving to walk/drive/call a taxi back to their homes.  This put me in a position I never cared for, which is the last one left at the party.  On top of that, my getup was more formal, which is due to the Bill Murray theme (I chose Herman Blume of Rushmore).

I had already called my tab, so I had walked out of the bar, and decided to sit down on what was practically a stoop on North Street.  I just sat there for at least ten minutes, watching some of the townspeople venture to the next stop on their after hours journeys, sitting there looking like a bit of a dunce in an empty suit.  I think I got a couple weird looks as well, as if I was some drunk down on his luck.  I start thinking of life like a movie and this is the part where I look bewildered as I walk away from the camera, and then take a seat.  Camera comes close to my face, bringing me to this point.

A significant amount of aspies that I have met in person like to observe people on a daily basis, much like many an NT will want to sit and look at the world.  I often do it because some concepts are still so alien, especially when I'm not totally in my element.  When others are off on an adventure for their night, they don't expect a man to sit on a corner looking at stars and buildings semi-intently.  I question if I would be considered one of the following as a man sitting on the corner without any props:

1. Some person stalking a woman to take home late in the night.
2. The wino looking for his next drink and is totally confused.
3. A person waiting for just the right taxi but forgetting how to chase one down.
4. A vigilante on the stakeout at such a late hour, hiding in plain sight.
5. An overall creep.

It's not a great distinction.  On the flip side, I also know that not everyone thinks I'm one of the above, just one of the night souls.  It's not the movie that I see myself in, but the action of sitting.  The one common ground with aspies?  We're often acting like scientists, conducting our own little experiments on each person and place, and no one knows it.  Which is just how we like it.  At the same time, I pick these moments to sit and think about something happening in my life, and possibly relating to someone else when I look around, rather than staring at a crack in the sidewalk.

I like to sit down at any time and unwind, like an NT probably does.  As established before, I'm a loner by nature, and it's nice to sometimes sit around and have those uninterrupted moments of introspection.  It's just that I won't always do it at the hours I expect to people-watch.  All because of the movie in my head, when the scene starts with me asking "how do these people do whatever they do?"  Cue the lab.

2012

A new year is here, and I finally have something to write, or at least a series of discombobulated thoughts, coming out like Pez candy.  It begins with a dispenser.

• I don't always know what to talk about as the year of the outlandish is upon us.  According to the Mayan calendar, we're doomed.  Here's the thing..I'm not one to believe in stuff like the calendar, but I am one to take someone trusted seriously when they attempt to get me to believe anything.  So it's like an inconsistent gullible nature.  I'm one of those types who would prefer to believe the best in people.
• Moving is something I have become used to; I was very happy to return to Philadelphia for break, but in another example of what someone once called 'autistic maturity,' I was actually quite happy as soon as I returned to Raleigh.  It's really become a home to me, as has the Southern Pines area...that whole US-1 corridor feels like home now.  I used to think I would never leave PA, but that mindset changed in summer 2010, and my job situation (combined with the job situation of a significant other) led me to actually change states.
• Despite that, I am dreading filing my taxes...mom may get a couple phone calls.  However, I feel less of a need to call my mother than I used to, which makes me happy since many of us have that need to rely on our caretakers.  Never a bad thing, but also nice to truly feel like an independent.
• I somehow drifted away from a list-making compulsion for the first time in...well, the first time ever.  No year-end albums list, no actual top five ranking (only that certain items would be 'top five' in a category).  I moved away from that since I was now at a longer distance.  When I came home I felt more of a need to speak up, but the familiarity allowed me to fall back into an old habit.
• I finished a course in CSS/XHTML via Sandhills Community College, my first time in a school setting since, well, my college graduation (I don't count some of those Comcast University training seminars).  This wasn't a tough course and was more instruction on a new language (not very abstract), yet the work I did have to put in made me feel like I could still pursue graduate school.  Now I need to get ready for that wake-up call later this year.  GRE prep is about to begin later this month.
• Going back to the moving, I have still not participated in any autism-spectrum-related organizations, especially since I left two local chapters behind (though one comes from a continental organization).  I would still love to set up a Triangle chapter for the GRASP partnership once I am comfortable and have some help, but I'm concerned about how long I will be spending in North Carolina (whether it is Raleigh, Chapel Hill, Apex, or even Greensboro), stretching myself thin in terms of time, or possibly trying to run it too much like the Philadelphia chapter (Bob gives me a high standard to live up to...if he's reading this, he deserves even more props than he likely already gets). Here's hoping I can balance this.
  
• They call us creative, but not focused.  I'm creative enough to almost have an EP of musical beats and breaks finished, but not focused enough to have it done yet.  My goal is to finally have it out this spring, and hopefully to get a few people to listen to my 'side project' which my brother's rap career helped inspire.

Otherwise, I'm out of things to say.  I'll likely post again by February!

We Can Use Tablets!

A report on 60 Minutes discusses some of the tools children and adults with autism can use.



I personally think this is a great idea, as I am one of those AS people who can communicate best through such applications, and it is a central point of the story that spectrum children who are nonverbal can use their iPads or other tablets to understand a student's true capability.  However, another message here is that the artificial intelligence of such processors allows us greater control over our environments, and lets us, well, do our thing.  Having that control can break us from our shells, especially when we become withdrawn in our individual awkwardness.  I guess you could say it is an outlet.

It's worth checking out if you haven't seen it.

An Example of Circumventing That Bullying Problem

Just a small follow-up after the post on school bullying...it turns out an autistic girl was named homecoming princess after a nomination prank backfired.

Now that makes my day.