I got a phone number from the GP.

I called the number. It turns out that this doctor is an adolescent specialist. She accepts adults... under 30.

I was put on to the intake officer, who said that there isn't anyone at that clinic who can help me, and offered two other private clinics. For me to cold-call.

Which is not so much of an improvement over the long list of psychs, each with “children only” or “school visits only” or “female patients only”.


And now, after that, my pulse is racing. Fuck. I didn't need that.


But the message is clear, anyway: if you are male and have survived to this age with Asperger's, then you can damn well fuck off and continue to do so with no help from us. We're gonna make you jump through hoops of fucking fire before we tell you you're twenty years too late to be helped.


Well that's just fucking lovely.

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Last weekend we went to the Surveying Expedition. Everyone else has been talking about how wonderful it was. I, on the other hand, was annoyed by the flies, and the dust, and the wind, and the cold, and the heat, and the sunburn, and, and, and... I started off grumpy, which mood didn't really improve, I know I had Aspie attacks (but I have no idea how badly I insulted the people I was talking to at the time). I couldn't really talk to people, as there was always the question of where the girls were at any given moment. (Not that we had them on leashes, but it's not fair to let them run completely rampant, such that other people have to look out for them.

Summary: it was nice enough, I suppose, but I couldn't enjoy it. This is obviously a failing on my part.


On Jingo day we, and several of the old York St crew and families, went to the zoo. During this pleasant day, Duff lent me a book which by coincidence I had, the previous week, determined I had to read. So I read “Look Me In The Eye: My Life with Asperger's”.
If you want to know more about how Aspies think, about the way I think, read this book. Seriously. This book is literally used as a textbook when teaching mental-health and education professionals about Autism. There is a chapter on conversation and logic, which is simply perfect. And keep in mind the line: ‘When you've met one Aspie, you've met one Aspie.’
Albeit that John Elder Robinson has lived a far more exciting life than I have.

mimdancer found The Big Bang Theory on sale during the week, and we have now seen the first of three disks. I really fail to see how Sheldon could be seen as anything other than an Aspie. He tries to be sociable, in his own way, but fundamentally doesn't get other people. And he knows it. He (sometimes) notices that people are upset, but usually doesn't know why. He talks on his own level, trying to be as accurate and precise as he knows how, not realising that the look on the other person's face is of bafflement. (Penny develops, quite quickly, an appropriate response: “Sheldon, you think you're being informative, but you're not.”) He gets enthusiastic about things which strike others as daft, at best, and he can't see why others aren't as fascinated as he is. He has routines and rituals, without which he is deeply uncomfortable. (Hamburger Wednesday, for instance, or his seat on the couch. The air of distress in his demeanour as he awkwardly searched for somewhere else to sit is a practically iconic scene.) I mean, I know the other three geeks, but I am Sheldon. He is the single central character to me, with whom I most strongly empathise, and the more I watch, the less I see of the egocentrism and arrogance that others have mentioned, and the more I see someone who has a specific and particular pathology, who knows what he can do, and who knows what he cannot.

I don't know that I am making any sense whatsoever there.


School starts again tomorrow. So does Kindy. So mimdancer is looking forward to her first day off in months... and dreading using that day to clean up the bombsite the kids have left in the living room.

(I am sure that Mim would say that I have had days off during the previous fortnight, but it doesn't feel like I have. I can't offhand remember having one. So my holiday from work has been replaced with working looking after the girls. And my holiday from the girls will be looking after the children who inhabit university faculties. Let's just say that I don't really feel much relaxed or rested. I'm sure that Mim will step in here and point out that I've been a veritable slug, have had aeons of solitude and rest, and that I'm simply being a whinger. So it goes.)

I wonder what sort of bombsite awaits me at work.



Oh, and I have the name and phone number of a doctor for Asperger's, whom I shall contact tomorrow.

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John Quiggan on ‘Lord’ Monckton.
Executive summary: Monckton is insane. Anyone who takes him seriously is either similarly insane, or an idiot, or a liar.

Larvatus Prodeo on the ‘MMR vaccine causes Autism!!eleven!’ doctor.
Executive summary: Andrew Wakefield is a liar and a fraud, and was paid to lie about the ‘connection’ between vaccines and autism. And the MMR hysterics who paid him — and are still paying him — are lunatics. And are causing more harm to their children through their actions than what those children already have from autism.

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Mimdancer has been keeping me updated with the goings-on on the Shambles.

It seems that it has been proposed that Fencers and Archers be allowed entry to the Knighthood.

And, predictably, the Knnnnn-ig-its have been throwing a collective hissy-fit.

‘But but but, then we wouldn't be speciallll!’ They whinge, and are, by account (and from Mimdancer has read out to me), throwing a most spectacular temper-tantrum.


Look, guys: the SCA has three peerages: A peerage for helping, a peerage for teaching, and a peerage for getting beaten around the head. Your (you knights) insistence that Fencers and Archers should be happy with the sops you decide to graciously allow them is, regrettably, entirely period. It's the periodicity of entrenched privilege, of immutable class boundaries, of political favour outweighing common sense and decency, of servants and untermenschen knowing their proper place.

It is the antithesis of Chivalric Behaviour.

And the suggestion of one individual that Fencers and Archers should just be happy with a GoA has been appropriately jumped on, I think, with people asking why, similarly, women shouldn't be happy with 60% of a man's salary.

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At Mimdancer's urging, I saw a GP this morning.

He said that my self-diagnosis sounds accurate.

He told me of a local clinic dealing with this sort of thing, and tried to contact their triage officer (for want of a better term). He was busy, so the GP will get back to me today with details, and a referral if needed.




It was much more stressful than I thought it would be. I came out trembling more than I had been going in.



EDIT: The people the GP wanted to talk to aren't in today, and he won't be able to get back to me until next Monday. So another week of waiting.

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Friends have urged me to see Big Bang Theory, with special reference to Sheldon. Well, now I've seen it.

And yes, it's hilarious. “Hello, Oompa-Loompas of Science!”





And at the same time... is that how people see me?

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I'm going to see friends tonight, no matter that there'll be an amway/tupperware style sales pitch party thing on.

I'm going to see friends I don't see nearly often enough. I'm looking forward to it. Why in seven hells am I shaking?

Fuck off, adrenal system. I'm a grown-up. I'm looking forward to it.

I just need to stop shaking.





I can do this.

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Car went on half-hour white-knuckle ride from Greensborough to Frankston after Cruise Control locks speed at 100kph.

Police investigation overwhelms world with the knowledge that they spent all this time looking for a mechanical cause to an electronic problem. And in the process disconnected the battery and nuked any useful state which might have helped.


FFS, how many decades has it been since Cruise Controls were mechanical? If ever? It's like going to a heart surgeon after a heart attack, being given a thorough once-over, and told there is nothing wrong, because your liver is in perfect working order.


It... I... gah! It burns!

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Obama appoints an advisor with 30 years experience. Who happens to be transgender.

Religious right fuckknuckles go completely bug nuts, because the appointment of anyone, anywhere, ever who is transgender breaks their quota for such things, which is: absolutely zero, none, nada, no exceptions, what right do those freaks think they have to exist? No TG person can ever have achieved a position through merit, and it must be an insidious quota system to fill the nation's positions of power with transsexuals and gays and blacks and Latinos.


Which just goes as further evidence that the Religious Right in the US has infinite compassion for their fellow man — if and only if that fellow man is wealthy, conservative, straight, Christian, and right-wing. Everyone else is going straight to Hell, and is to be helped along if possible. Jerry Falwell God said so. Honest.

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