Long Hair

My grandfather put a lot of importance on hair, its length, its care -- its spiritual significance. Even though his career dictated that his hair must be kept short. As a child my hair grew long and free. None of the other kids had a problem with it. Teachers at school questioned my mother when my braid passed the small of my back but she stood up for me. It was harmless.

When lice was going around the school and I contracted it from my younger sibling, the school nurse advised us that we would have to cut my hair. That I could not be properly treated as I was, even though she wasn't going to be the one to treat me. It would take too long, according to them. My mother sat with me patiently, working the product into my scalp and combing through my hair strand by strand for hours. I was lice free faster than most other children on campus despite having three times as much hair. I did not cut my hair for medical reasons.

When I started high school I was pressured by my peers to cut my hair. Suddenly, even with them, it was an issue. My friends would tell me at least once a week how much better I would look with shorter hair. A style more in trend at the time, shoulder length or shorter was all the rage. They didn’t get why I would sacrifice their view of beauty for an idea they couldn’t fathom. Sure, I was pretty, but I could be prettier. Why wouldn’t I want that? I did not cut my hair for fashion.

In my junior year I was told that the boy I liked would not date me because I had so much hair. It was just too long. I was told that he would date me after I got a hair cut and only then. His loss, not mine. I did not cut my hair for a boy.

In my senior year I met a little girl with Alopecia. I overheard her speaking to her mother about how all she wanted was to look like other girls at school and not be teased for her baldness – which she had no control over. I had an abundance and she had nothing. The next day I cut my hair and donated it to Locks of Love. An organization that creates quality wigs for children with Alopecia and Cancer who cannot otherwise afford them. I cut my hair for charity.

Even though it was for a good cause, I disliked the sudden shortness of my hair. I felt as if part of me was gone. Though I did not regret my decision, I wanted to grow it out again immediately. I heard nothing but boisterous compliments from my peers. That boy I had liked asked me out. I told him I knew puddles with more depth. He didn’t get it. I had to explain that I was turning him down.

No one understood why I didn’t maintain my new hair style. Why I would let it grow out again. It was completely beyond their comprehension that hair could possibly be anything other than a fashion statement. I tried to explain, every now and then, but the idea was so outrageous to them they couldn’t grasp it. “But you looked great with short hair!” is all I’d get back.

I’ve cut my hair several times since then, usually for reasons (loss, new start, etc.), and always donated it. Every single time I go through the same experience. "You should keep it this length, you look so much better with short hair!" Hair can be fashionable, there's nothing wrong with that, but that isn't its sole purpose. Not to me. Not to many people. It is more than an accessory.

I will cut my hair when it is significant to do so. While I appreciate the thought behind the compliments, please don't be shocked when I go against all reason (in your mind) and grow it out again.

Thinking With Portals

By: Chell

Portal is one of my favorite game series and there is a reason for that. It's deceivingly intricate. The mechanics, the characters, the setting, the history and the way it's all sort of left open to interpretation is just flawlessly executed. On the surface it seems like a fun to play game with light subject matter but it's actually very dark if you're paying any attention at all. Warning: spoilers -- obviously.

You start out a nameless test subject (Chell) that has been stripped of all person-hood (mute and suffering from amnesia). She awakes from stasis and after briefly confusion and aimlessness, is forced to complete test after test against her will. After realizing that it's this forever, until death, or trying to escape, Chell follows obscure clues and directions left behind by some other survivor. Evidenced by many 'nests' of hoarded food and supplies, they probably lived the remainder of their days crawling through the walls, on the run. Just how many subjects had been tested before her?

Eventually Chell manages to find and defeat the evil AI overmind (GLaDOS) that killed everyone in the facility with neurotoxin, who knows how long ago exactly, on Take Your Daughter to Work Day. How nefarious and curious. Why though? Is it just a case of an AI doing what an AI will inevitably do? Find humans meaningless? Is there more to this story than a lab rat wanting to be free? If you pay close attention, yeah, probably. Though the protagonist herself is in the dark.

As you play, you discover that Aperture Science was in direct competition with Black Mesa and, through no fault of its own, could not compete. Genius proprietor Cave Johnson slowly descends into madness the longer he tries to one-up his competition. To the point where he goes from working with the world's elite for the scientific advancement of mankind, Olympic athletes and astronauts, to basically conning homeless people into taking part in his experiments which get crazier and more desperate as years pass. Finally Apreture is bankrupt and, morally, so is Johnson. His ever loyal assistant Caroline remains by his side, and is in all likelihood the only one to do so.

Through gameplay and after the closing credits, it's easily concluded that during these earlier years Johnson and Caroline had a relationship deeper than business and, in all likelihood, had a child together. This child is adopted out to another scientist at the facility (evidenced by all of commentary about Chell being an orphan/adopted) for whatever reason, possibly against Caroline's wishes -- as you soon discover during this time period she is also forcibly uploaded into the system to become GLaDOS, a program/entity meant to oversee operations at the facility. That Caroline is Chell's mother is common conjecture at this point.

What seems less considered is why GLaDOS went rogue in the first place. Many seem to think that, as an AI, simply having her humanity removed did something that left her irrevocably evil and that's why she killed everyone. However, I doubt her motives were so shallow. Nothing about this series is that simple.

All seems to be going relatively well, after some tweaking to weed out problem behavior (probably because Caroline did not want to be there), until Take Your Daughter to Work Day. If you paid close attention to the dioramas set up by the children on that day, you'll notice that one of them is none other than Chell's. Meaning Chell was a child at the facility at the time of the neurotoxin event and in all likelihood grew up trapped within the facility. If you read her project, it also implies that Chell had no idea Johnson may've been her father and probably thought that her mother had died in labor, since there's no mention of a maternal figure at all.

Is it possible that GLaDOS went berserk after seeing her daughter again? A daughter she may not have wanted to give up in the first place? Were there other plans for Chell that GLaDOS, as overseer of the facility, became aware of and decided perpetual stasis was a more merciful fate? A way for them to be together at last, perhaps? Until tampering and/or system decay lead GLaDOS to forget all about being Caroline, about her daughter.

Upon rediscovering Caroline, GLaDOS appears regretful, and not only saves Chell from imminent demise at the hands of another, but also spares her when she has the opportunity to kill her herself. Which is allegedly all GLaDOS has ever wanted since meeting her. GLaDOS claims to delete Caroline, but during the credits sings about Caroline being there with her. There is no reason for GLaDOS to let Chell walk away. She says killing her is hard, but she had her surrounded and completely at her mercy when she says that. Perhaps she did not mean physically hard but rather emotionally so. Which is supported by the opera sung by the turrets as Chell ascends to the surface -- filled with flowery lyrics of endearment and love in Latin.

Once Caroline is reintegrated, are the continued jabs an attempt to encourage Chell to leave when she has the chance? It seems that, after this event, GLaDOS wants Chell to be free of all of this. That she is being driven away. Realizing that if Chell stayed, her programming -- to make humans test until they can't anymore, would trump any familial instincts that remained. Furthermore, if Chell knew, would she stay? If she had any inkling would leaving be harder? GLaDOS can't take that chance, and, right until the end maintains the charade that Caroline has been deleted and that Chell is loathed: nothing but a thorn in her proverbial side. But it's all a rather obvious ruse to the player, who is privvy (if they've been paying attention) to more information than Chell.

So instead of just a story about a Science Facility murdered by an evil AI that then proceeds to go through all of the humans in stasis to force them into testing for its amusement until they cannot test anymore... evil for evil's sake, you have something much cooler. A man being slowly destroyed by his work, descending into a desperate madness so dark that he kills the woman he loves (for science!) and can't bare to raise their child (or at least cannot raise her and use her for experiments, so he has to choose one or the other and he, of course, chooses science) so she's given to a fellow scientist. But despite best efforts Caroline's maternal instinct isn't easy to wipe clean and discovering the truth leads her to believe that Chell is better off dead -- and anyone else in the facility deserves to die for their part in all of this. Who knows what Johnson had planned for Chell, given what he had planned for Caroline.

Things confirmed as canon:

• Chell is an orphan, adopted by a scientist at Aperture Science.
• Chell was a child during The Event and completed a potato battery diorama.
• Aperture Science and Black Mesa are contemporaries and were in direct competition.
• Black Mesa's success is, at least in part, due to stealing technology from Aperture Science.
• Black Mesa is therefor partially responsible for the events at Aperture Science.
• Cave Johnson is a genius who is driven mad by his inability to succeed.
• In an effort to stay afloat his experiments become more dangerous and farfetched.
• Caroline is Johnson's assistant. Their relationship is a close one.
• Caroline stays by Johnson's side even as his company falls apart.
• Caroline becomes GLaDOS. This happens against her will.
• In order to control GLaDOS, they have to delete core aspects of Caroline's personality.
• They still cannot control GLaDOS.
• During Take Your Daughter to Work Day, GLaDOS locks down the facility and murders all of the people inside.
• Caroline and Chell are said to be very much alike. Both described as overly tenacious.
• Once Caroline is restored, GLaDOS' demeanor and attitude toward Chell change.
• When Chell's life is endangered by someone/thing else, GLaDOS saves her.
• When put at her mercy, GLaDOS doesn't kill Chell despite claiming that has been all she's wanted since their first encounter.
• GLaDOS claims to have deleted Caroline, but evidence suggests otherwise.

What is Being Autistic Like?

Recently someone asked what being Autistic is like. It is different for everyone, so please bear that in mind. My experience will not be everyone’s experience. Also, I swear a lot as a coping mechanism, so I apologize for that ahead of time.

For me it’s like… I wake up in the morning and everything is so bright that the sun may as well be in the fucking room with me. Incandescent light sources are no better, each like its own tiny star shining right in my eyes.

Next are the colors, I’m actually lucky here, because I can’t see all of them. They are so, so vibrant. Beautiful, but they make it difficult to focus. What should I look at? I don’t know, it’s like a god damned Van Gogh painting all the time.

Next are the sounds. I’m actually somewhat shielded from these now, having lost most of my hearing in 2007. That said, it used to be like waking up in the subway. The TV, people talking at you, dogs barking, and so forth were like listening to music through headphones but the only volume setting is MAX.

My clothes, plush baby fleece and soft vintage cotton, feel like sand against my skin. Each time I move it’s like that awful feeling when a cat licks you with it’s tiny barbed tongue. The pressure of my blanket, which I ironically cannot sleep without, feels like the weight of a whole other person laid on top of me. Many people also have sensitivities to taste and smell. I am not one of them.

It’s so easy to become overwhelmed if you aren’t really, really careful.

My perception of time is awful. It makes food preparation a nightmare. I have to set timers for everything or it gets burnt or forgotten about. One minute? May as well be an hour. I won’t know the difference. I wear a watch and am surrounded by clocks but Dyscalculia means I can never trust I noted the time correctly. Autism does not immediately mean you’re a math/number prodigy, which seems to be the biggest misconception out there.

Next, do I have something to do today that requires I follow instructions? Following directions intended for people who think and process everything differently than you do can be challenging. There are multiple ways to interpret most instructions, multiple solutions to every problem. I may take longer to reach the same conclusion simply because I took the long route to it rather than the most direct, because the more complicated way of doing it was more interesting to me. A lot of NT people get hung up on the how, rather than the fact that the ideal result was reached.
When setting out to complete a task I must always ask myself: Do I have the time to complete this thing in a single sitting? Being unable to finish something  is one of my biggest meltdown/shutdown triggers and to avoid that, I’d rather just put that thing off than risk be interrupted doing it. So some days I don’t get much accomplished.

Do I have to work with others? Are people demanding of my time or attention? This is difficult to deal with persistently. I need to maintain a lot of personal discipline and outside influences take away from that. Imagine that you are studying for a very important exam and there is someone in the room talking about the weather while you’re trying to read. This is what everyday conversations can be like for me.

This is a primary reason I’m so fond of text-based communication. I can partake when I’m capable of it. It comes off as really cavalier and robotic, but it’s just a way to deal with being overwhelmed from the moment I wake up in the morning by literally every.little.fucking.thing.

To cope with all of the above, I may at random intervals sway, vocalize, or lose myself to a task that seems trivial to the outside observer (listening to a song on repeat, scrolling tumblr, stringing beads, etc.) and not want to do anything else. My disinterest in outside tasks isn’t because I don’t want to partake but because I recognize I’m about to reach BS critical mass and need to take a fucking step back before I’m really miserable.

There are a few things that I am hyper-interested in. These are commonly referred to as special interests. You probably assume you have these too, maybe you like BSG a whole, whole lot. I promise you though, that you do not like it as much as an Autistic with a BSG special interest does. It’s not the same. I could talk to you about my special interests for literal days without pause, whether you seemed interested or not because I’m so intrigued by it I won’t notice that you aren’t. Even if you tell me as much, I might continue talking about it anyway because it’s hard to fucking stop. Have you heard about this thing? IT’S SO DAMNED COOL. You don’t like it? Well, here are 99 reasons that you should. Cited with sources.

A lot of this probably sounds negative, but it really isn’t. I’m used to it, I’ve been living this way all my entire life and so long as an outsider doesn’t give me shit, I can lead a perfectly happy day-to-day life because I know my boundaries. Any bad experience I’ve had in regards to being Autistic has been because some other person couldn’t grasp that Autism effects more than 6 year old white boys who love trains and math.

R.I.P. Leonard Nimoy

When I was a child, Autism wasn't very common. Before my diagnosis no one in my family had ever even heard the term. I was the only child like me that I knew. Worse than that, I was the only person like me that I knew of. Despite how famously my mother handled the situation, it was very lonely and despite living in a big city I felt extremely isolated.

My entire family was "normal." All of my friends and class mates were normal. Everyone I read about in books or saw on TV  was, more or less, normal. So you can imagine the relief, and my delight, when I saw my first episode of Star Trek as a little girl and realized there was a character who struggled very much in the same ways I did, a character who behaved much in the same ways I did. A successful character, not only accepted by his crew mates but cared for.

Spock was a game changer for me. The lone voice, from a stranger, saying it'd be okay.

At last: a person that I could relate to on a personal level. Something I'd never experienced before. What a reassurance to a young, isolated girl. You can't even imagine. He gave me hope I otherwise probably wouldn't have had. That made a huge difference in my life. For the first time I considered the possibility that people outside of my family could accept me.

I wanted to be an astronaut, to leave the planet and see if there were other people like me out there amongst the stars.

Of course I didn't need to leave the planet to find others like me. They existed right here on Earth. I just didn't know that yet. As the 80's gave way to the 90's Autism diagnoses were on the rise and I was meeting more and more people like myself. More therapies became available to help me cope with my condition. A lot of them focused on making me fit in with my peers, but I never felt pressured to do so because of Spock. Spock never had to conform. He was who he was unapologetically and people accepted him, eventually, regardless of how strange they found him at first. So I didn't conform and it was the best decision I could've made.

I am an undoubtedly happier, healithier person for not having to pretend all the time to be someone I'm not. I would not have considered this a possibility, with all the professional opinions back then, without Star Trek -- without Spock in particular. It was a show with an overarching message of equality and acceptance. Sure there were also lasers, fist fights, and space ships but ultimately those elements took a backseat to ground breaking television (for its time). I know I'm not the only person inspired by the show, or Leonard Nimoy's depiction of Spock, it's inspired countless people of all ages and backgrounds I'm sure.

But I felt compelled this morning to put into words how profoundly this actor and his work had truly made an impact in my life. I felt compelled to explain why the death of Leonard Nimoy, honorary grandfather to many, is felt so personally: because he was a great actor but an even greater person.

When a celebrity touches your life in any significant way their loss is felt regardless of whether or not you ever met. It's okay to feel sad about the death of a person you never truly knew. However he lead a long, full life and he died comfortably, at home, with those who did know him by his side -- can't ask for a much happier ending than that.

Anyway, I'm not certain how coherently this is written, I've been trying to get the words just right since 11:00AM and it's now 8:49PM so I'll just leave you with this quote and offer my condolences to Mr. Nimoy's family, friends, co-workers, and honorary grandchildren everywhere.

"Loss of life is to be mourned, but only if the life was wasted." -Spock

Goodbye 2014, Hello 2015

Where did you begin 2014?

At home!

What was your status by Valentine's Day?
Taken.

Were you in school (anytime this year)?
No.

Did you have to go to the hospital?
No.

Did you have any encounters with the police?

Yes.

Where did you go on vacation?
Los Angeles, sorta.

What did you purchase that was over $500?
Neelix's health (vet bills).

Did you know anybody who got married?
I don't believe so.

Did you know anybody who passed away?
Jim. Daphne.

Did you move anywhere?
No.

What sporting events did you attend?
None.

What concerts/shows did you go to?
Saw Doug play at the Red Lion.

Where do you live now?
California.

What's the one thing you thought you would never do but did in 2014?
Eat chicken livers? I mean, I suppose that.

What has/have been your favorite moment(s)?
Eileen moving to Sacramento.
Play dates at the Play Place.
Jude's 2nd Birthday.
Thanksgiving at Josh's.
Jude learning his ABC's.
Building Lego with Aaron.

What's something you learned about yourself?
Sometimes the least expected is what happens.

Any new additions to your family?
No.

What was your best month?
December.

What music will you remember 2014 by?
Anything, Hedley.

Made new friends?
Not this year.

Favorite Night[s] out?
The night we went to The Americana and caught the water show.

Any regrets?
Never.

What do you want to accomplish in 2015?
Get this baby talking!

What would you change about 2014?
Eh.

Other than home, where did you spend most of your time?
Los Angeles.

Have any life changes in 2014?
A couple deaths in the family. :(

Change your hairstyle?
Does longer count?

Get a new job?
 Still Pro Mom.

Do you have a New Year's resolution?
Something realistic, like 'get out more.'

Did anything embarrassing?
Constantly.

What was/were your favorite purchase[s]?
My Star Trek ring.
Jude's flip-board.
Comic Books.
Fleece pants.
Imaginext for Jude.

Get married or divorced?
No.

Did you get sick this year?
As ever.

Start a new hobby?
Does narrating my life through song count?

Are you happy to see 2014 go?
It's been a year.

Drank Starbucks in 2014?
Yes.

What are you wishing for in 2015?
Seeing my family would be great.

Double Autism

It was time for the MMR booster, anti-vaxx was just taking off, another parent aware of my condition asks my mother if she'll risk it.

There are a hundred appropriate responses to this my mother could have chosen. Should she explain that vaccines don't cause Autism? That the person responsible for this 'study' has already lost his medical license? Should just slap them? Should she remind them that Autism is a fate indefinitely better than death, particularly death from Measles? My mom turns to them and says, somehow with a straight face, "What's it gonna do, give her Double Autism?"

Of all the ways my mother could have responded, this is probably my favorite. The other parent had no idea how to react other than to take a good hard look at what they had just asked. Because really.

I'm not an RPG character.

The other night Aaron was having trouble falling asleep so he started listening to music on his phone.

Earlier I had been playing Bravely Default. When it was time for bed, rather than turn off the 3DS I had just put it in sleep mode (to collect SPs).

Barely able to hear the music, but able to tell that is what was happening, I was jolted back to consciousness because I thought the DS had turned back on and was blaring RPG music in the middle of the night and I was ruining everything. So I start rolling and flopping around trying to solve the problem and Aaron is just like, "...?"

I mumble, "Is there music???"
"Yes."
I flail around ineffectually some more before realizing the 3DS is still in sleep mode.
He says, "Sorry, I didn't realize it was that loud."
At which point he turns it down and I, relieved it wasn't my fault, apparently declare, "I'm not an RPG character."

Which I guess meant to imply that I don't have background music? So none of this was my fault? I don't know precisely because I don't even remember saying it.