I fucking hate this extractive capitalist timeline.
So many of my friends are hurting right now in such deep ways.
I want to help out every single one of them, but I just don't have the resources.
Fuck.
Ughhh I CANNOT get over the fact that every single teacher and every single guest speaker in my class this entire eight weeks has recommended, nay, insisted, that we use AI.
Every. Single. One.
I don't understand how you can be a practicing Buddhist and believe that using #AI is OK.
Are you a #Buddhist who thinks using AI is OK? It's no longer fun Google.
Talk to me. I don't think you'll convince me, but I want to try to understand your rationale.
My rationale, just for your information is: I believe AI use is environmentally unsound and ultimately unsustainable; hyperscale data centers are going to destroy the Earth and are already bullying and decimating smaller, poorer communities; and AI use is also destroying human minds and human creativity.
I think championing human ingenuity and creativity and championing taking care of our planet and our people are essential to being and ethical and engaged person.
You?
For anyone who has never witnessed an #autistic #meltdown I imagine from the outside it looks frightening as hell.
I live alone, so my only witnesses right now are my animals, but I fear the day that my new housemate might stumble across me in the middle of one.
I am going to have to have a sit down with him sometime after he gets here and explain to him that he may encounter me in one at some point, and that the best response will be to ask me if there is anything I need from him when I'm in the middle of one -- and to assure him that I will be OK!
Today I've had two so far. One was in the middle of the night, triggered by a terrible, terrible nightmare, after which I took the maximum amount of my anti-anxiety drug that I am allowed to take. Then because of the drug, I was able to get three more hours of decent sleep (albeit with wildly weird and intense dreams).
Then, unfortunately, I slept all the way through to my first alarm, which I had not been doing lately. Lately I had been waking up fairly refreshed about an hour before, so I had the luxury of time to get things done not on an strict alarm schedule. But when all of my morning task alarms started going off every five to ten minutes today, I lost it again and ended up in a 45-minute rage meltdown.
The odd thing about me now is I can go into autopilot and get chores and other tasks done even if I am screaming and raging and crying. In fact, that's incredibly helpful to me to do.
That ability is a deflection tactic that I worked very hard to make myself switch to a few years ago so I would not self-harm during a meltdown. I need to move and handle things and hit soft things (and throw things!) in order not to hit myself -- especially my head.
I have vertigo now and have been having a severe bout of it this past week, and in 2021 I triggered a severe bout by hitting my head in a meltdown. I had to put a sign up in my bedroom that I could see without my glasses on that said: DO NOT HIT YOUR HEAD!
Hitting my head is something I have done since childhood when melting down. I would either bang the back of my head against a wall or, later, as an adult, I would actually slap myself silly or bash my own head with my own hands (and I am wicked strong, so I did damage).
My phone, which was the focus of my rage today because the alarms I have set for each task I realize now are completely unrealistic if I actually try to follow them, is often the victim of a hard, angry throw. I do retain the presence of mind not to throw many things that will break anymore, like I did when I was younger, but I did crack the phone screen protector (again) today and one of the cats' feeding plates (the cat is fine! I just slammed the wet food can down too hard on the fragile plate and it shattered).
All this to say: Even though I am older and fully aware during my meltdowns and can guide myself not to self-harm most of the time, it has to look like the worst mental breakdown ever from the outside. I've got to look like a madman!
It's no wonder our people were thrown into institutions to rot rather than approached with curiosity and compassion in the past. It's no wonder that parents who are not autistic who see these rages in their children freak out and want to put them through torturous "therapy" to break their spirits and make them stop. I have a sneaking suspicion that it is other people's discomfort that has caused most of our problems -- besides the self-harm that some of us do.
We are lucky to live in a time right now where we can't and shouldn't go back to social and institutional isolation. The egg has cracked, and now many of us are out in the world and striving for understanding and community. It is a travesty that most of us who are older were completely missed, and that there are no supports available for us. We've had to create our own community and our own supports and our own understanding, which actually has been amazing for me to experience.
We have one another. We get us. I wouldn't be here and able to understand myself and my neurology without the tireless advocacy and work of every autistic person who has fought for their self-advocacy and rights over the years. I wouldn't be here without stumbling across the information I needed on the Internet more than 10 years ago and realizing holy shit, I'm not broken, I'm autistic. There's a difference! Then, to have it confirmed in real life by a few other fellow autistic elders felt amazing, even though I'm no longer in contact with my autistic egg crack person. It doesn't mean that we all get along just because we have similar neurologies!
Also, I wouldn't feel that I could share all of this with you if we were still persecuted and shunned and shut away the way we have been in centuries past.
I know there are forces out there who believe us to be aberrations who are only pitiful and meant to be "cured", but we are SO not that. We are living, breathing, feeling, sometimes very intense human beings who deserve love and respect and kindness and work to do in the world as well as the space to let our neurologies balance themselves out in the way they need to -- even if that means we have to go through meltdowns.
The end result after a meltdown for me is as if my brain has been purged for a little while of all of the stress, tension, fear, worry, anger, anxiety, and toxic shit that builds up on a daily basis.
It's a hard-won shore to wash up onto, and it can't be triggered in smaller ways to release the stress less dramatically. Trust me, I've tried to "hack" myself, tried to trigger smaller, more manageable episodes, and it just does not work. I am an avid daily meditator, a trained meditation teacher, a trained yoga teacher, a lifelong body worker so I understand somatic and neurology, and I know everything I can possibly know about calmness and breathing techniques and everything you can even think of that people think are these wild magical techniques to hack the brain.
Autistic meltdowns defy all of those things, can't be avoided, and just have to be ridden out. I'm lucky that I have an anxiety medication prescription that I can use to blunt the edges if I can get to it. But it doesn't stop them. Mine usually lasts 30 to 45 minutes if they are a major one. And then it's like the sun came out again after a storm.
The unpredictability of meltdowns, though, does become a big issue. They often have a huge price to pay in the regular world, especially if we've broken things, missed work, missed a deadline, or had a witness to the event and that has disrupted *them* uncomfortably.
That has happened to me in the past, having a witness who didn't understand, and there have been a variety of responses from them, including rejection and abandonment.
I'm now behind on all my morning tasks, so I'm going to have to shift some of them to later in the day because I have to go to work in about an hour.
But I am back to being cogent, calm, and, of course, exhausted. My brain feels clear, even though I can feel the anti-anxiety drug still in my system.
I will spend some time later today resetting my morning alarms so they are not as unrealistic anymore in case I actually sleep up to my first alarm again. That may mean setting the first one a little earlier so I have the grace of more time between tasks in the morning.
I may also put all of the dozen tasks that I get done in the morning before I even sit down to meditate on my checklist because I realized today that only one of them is on there as an umbrella checkbox, and it's not satisfying AT All to only check off one of them when I've been working around the house and for the animals for 45 minutes straight! 🤣😩
Thanks for reading. I hope you are well today. Love you.
I'll tell you what, once the scales fall off your eyes and you start to see how ableist general society is, you can't slap those filters back on.
Someone asked me rather rudely today why I was wearing arthritis gloves. I was like I work with my hands, and sometimes my hands hurt a lot. Compression helps them feel better.
My answer didn't seem to satisfy the person who asked, so then they wanted to ask a bunch more questions about why I was in pain, and I didn't want to answer, so I just deflected and moved them onto a different subject.
Someone else I was talking to was talking about some potential orthotic devices that would actually help them walk better yet how they weren't going to do it even though it would help them walk better because it would be so noticeable that they were wearing devices. Then they went on to talk about a mutual friend who now has to walk with two canes, making that sound like that was the end of the world. They also talked about another person whom I do not know who is sometimes able to walk and sometimes chooses to ride an electric scooter. They made it sound like that was the end of the world.
I don't know if I'm just hearing other people's fears of death and disability, but that's probably what's going on. I may be projecting as well, because I have phases where I'm less able and phases where I'm more able, physically. I myself understand that I don't have a perfect relationship with ableism or being disabled.
I used to be a person who pushed myself through pain more often than I should have, and I also used to be a person who didn't want to have to show any disability because of my own internalized ableism. I was and I am still a mess.
I am an occasional cane or walking stick user because sometimes I can't walk without pain, but most of the time, when I'm in such a state, other people don't even see me, because I'm home and I'm trying to recuperate. I consider that a bit of ableism on my part, but it's also often because I don't have much energy to go out when I can't walk well.
My solution for this regarding having two very large, energetic dogs was to get an adult trike. I consider that a mobility device that allows me to get them the exercise that they need without pushing my boundaries. I think it's fantastic! We all have a ton of fun.
But at first? I felt like a failure for not being able to ride a regular bike next to them or to be able to walk them as much as they needed. It's a safety thing too, though. They can't pull me over on a 65 pound electric tricycle. I've had two concussions (both with a helmet on!) from them pulling me over on a regular beach cruiser trike. Lesson learned.
Death and disability are coming for every single one of us at some point. Nobody old dies hale and hearty and able to leap over tall buildings in a single bound. We just don't talk much at all about this shit in our society, and the more I see it, the more I'm confused at how to make these conversations happen without them being awkward and weird and invasive.
I'd like to show up in the world even when I am using an assistive device, even if it's a item of clothing, and not have people question it. I'd like to be my full autistic self out in society as well and have that be OK, too but that's almost even less possible.
I think part of the reason why I don't like to show when I'm in pain is because people ask questions and I can't stand their false sympathy or whatever it is they're projecting toward me. Just let me deal with whatever I'm dealing with, and also let me feel like an imposter on the days where I don't feel as much pain and disability.
Internalized ableism is one of my largest demons and I fight it almost every single day. So it's no wonder that I see it reflected in our society.
I know I'm feeling super-sensitive about it right now because I was sick all weekend with something I could not control and had no agency in. It's just part of what happens to me sometimes. I had to endure the sympathy of my bosses when I went back to work today but they were actually really understanding because they have relatives who have this same condition.
They were amazingly gentle with me, so it felt good to be in a supportive environment where people actually understood rather than asking a bunch of invasive questions and to get back working at a job that I'm really good at. So they helped me get back on my feet today, even though I was exhausted and really wrung out from the episodes I had.
Bodies are weird, man, but getting to be a human being really is a precious and interesting thing most of the time.
I know I'm like six years late to the #sourdough trend, but that's how I roll.
#Keto bread is stupid expensive now, pushing $12 a loaf, and it's meh. I've only been eating that because the gluten-free keto bread tastes like fish, probably because of the amount of psyllium in it. That one is also stupid expensive.
I started #fermenting some buckwheat flour just to see what would happen and because I always need more projects on my plate lol (<----- that is a LIE).
My first attempt at making a loaf was a failure because I didn't follow any directions, I used the discard rather than what's sitting on the counter, and I was a dingdong when I baked it (too low of a temperature, not enough time, sliced into it too early to see if it was done, added way too much psyllium and no salt), but hey, the chickens loved it.
This is my second loaf. It's just buckwheat flour, salt, water, and fermented buckwheat starter (which is just buckwheat flour and filtered water), and some psyllium husk to hold it together (I still definitely put in too much psyllium).
It's really dense. I buttered the pan with salted butter and buttered the top, which ended up being a mistake because the butter ran out of the pan and started burning on the bottom of the oven, but it came out just fine after the smoke cleared and the salted butter made a DELICIOUS crust. Mmmmmmm!
I think the amount of flour I used, which is from a recipe, was too much for the pan I used. But I like the shape of the pan that I used, so I will simply cut back on the amount of flour next time by about.... I don't know because the flour amount was in grams, so half a cup? 🤷
The taste is good, nicely sour, and nutty, and... I definitely could use less psyllium, because it seems to have inhibited the rise, even though the rise was pretty darn good.
Now I have to keep feeding the starter, which I have named Kevin, because I have too many Steves in my life. "Feed Kevin" is on my to-do list every single day now.
I haven't figured out what to do with the discard yet. Maybe make some flatbreads? Pancakes??? I still don't understand the discard process and why it's done? I guess I need to do some more reading. It's that perpetual need for autistic people to completely understand the process when normal people just assume that we know what they're talking about. I think an #autistic #baking cookbook would be really amazing! I'm not gonna write that one, though. Feel free to steal the idea.
I do have a new-to-me brand of gluten-free flour out of which I may try to make a sourdough boule with the buckwheat starter. I'm also supposed to be getting some actual gluten-free sourdough starter in the mail sometime this week, so maybe I will start a Steve.
But, I gotta go one loaf at the time bc I'm just one person, and I don't think anybody else would like this particular thick, heavy bread. I went ahead and sliced it and froze most of it for later. I'm continually grateful that I have a left-handed bread knife, gifted to me by my mother decades ago.
This 100% buckwheat bread makes decent toast if you like thick heavy toast. I think it'll be really tasty to use when I start making savory soups!
I'm also experimenting with this to see how much eating it might spike my blood sugar. I was hoping the psyllium would help keep that down. One slice with some stupid nonfat yogurt this morning wasn't bad (the non-fat part was an accident on my part).
Why is it sitting naked in the oven on the photo? The recipe called for baking it in the pan for 45 minutes and then popping it out of the pan to bake for another 15. It meant that there was a nice thick crust all the way around. Mmmmmmmmm!
A #computer has never tasted a chocolate raspberry truffle. A computer has never experienced a sunrise. A computer has never cried upon hearing a piece of music. A computer has never felt a warm hug. A computer has never lost a loved one. A computer has never lain awake at night worrying. A computer has never truly loved.
Don't outsource your unique human brain and talents to a mishmash-making machine and expect transcendence.
All #AI does is take all the ingredients in your kitchen, whether wholesome or poisonous, and mash them all together to tell you it's made a delicious cake. The cake is a lie -- and it could kill you.
Only humans can make something exquisite, unforgettable, or transcendent. Human minds can feel, taste, hear, touch, see, love, experience, and interpret the world in beautiful, meaningful ways.
Don't outsource your gorgeous human mind and precious skills to an unthinking, uncaring, meaningless, #slop-making machine. Make it yourself. Do it yourself. Work on it. Struggle and suffer and transcend and learn to enjoy the messy process.
Make human meaning mean something again.
I'm in my final stretch of class for my advanced #meditation teacher training and I had to bite my tongue in class this week because of everybody talking about all the corporate social media that we're supposed to be on to promote ourselves, and using #AI even to code and build websites and and and...
I was hoping to get some really useful information out of this class because I trust the teacher and I know that he really knows his stuff, but I was really dismayed with this week's class. I feel like he's asking us to dance with the goddamned devil.
I resolutely refuse to use AI; I refuse to use it in my work, I refuse to use it to do any writing (I fucking know how to proofread, thank you very much!), I refuse to use it on my website, and I also refuse to use most social media, especially X, Instagram and LinkedIn. I do have a nominal Facebook presence again because it's the only place I know where I can connect with people in my own community regarding potential class offerings. (I truly hate every minute of it!)
The only corporate social I've fully caved to is YouTube, because I'm starting to post steam train videos and intentionally boring long-form outdoor adventure videos there, but I'm not interested in promoting my meditation teaching practice on YouTube right now for a number of valid reasons.
I'm sure I will pass the class just fine, but I'm trying to find a diplomatic way to bring up the topic of AI and how fucking destructive it is to the planet and to the human brain with these people. These are all Buddhists, for Buddha sake (well, I think most of them are?). You think that they would be a little more sensitive to such topics.
I guess I'm gonna be the turd in the pool on the community forum this week. I do not believe that outsourcing your brain and outsourcing your work to AI is a fruitful or useful thing. I believe that it's a fucking trap and that it degrades the human creative spirit almost instantly once one relies upon it.
I also need to remember that most of the people in my class are not neurodivergent, so probably don't think that deeply about these things. They likely see other people using AI and assume that it's OK. My strong ethical codes and boundaries and empathy for the planet are not how most other people live their lives.
Then again, I'm a poet, and a musician, so suffering through creating with my own brain is just part of how I exist, even though most of the work that I try to do in the world is aimed toward helping alleviate suffering for others (or, at the very least, making them laugh or smile). 🤷
Oooh, I have a good #Caturday photo!
My babies like to sleep on the dogs' bed when the dogs are not on there.
In fact, they'll also sleep on the bed when the dogs are on the bed!
Tempted to change my pronouns to "them/thar" to see if anyone notices.
I only just remembered that it is the day! Yarrrrr!
I have such an awesome neighbors. I can't even.
My back fence neighbor cooks for a sorority, and he also grows really amazing tomatoes, so not only did we get tomatoes this year from him (including chicken tomatoes with worms in them), he now brings me all of the veggie stems and scraps from cooking at the sorority!
It's so easy to throw these all into the food processor to make chickie slaw. The extra nutrition is just perfect right now for my layers because they're all going into a moult.
Ash says Happy #Caturday!
I'm thinking about cutting down the legs so that it is more coffee-table height. I know that's a risky thing to do, but I know also to "measure twice and cut once".
It was not an expensive table; under $300, though I am not sure if I have the right blade so that the legs will not splinter when I cut them. (I do have a variety of blades on my reciprocating saw, which is the only tool I'd have to cut the legs because now I can't take the legs off without taking almost the entire table apart again).
But first, I think I'm going to try it out in front of the couch with the couch in the new position in the room first to see how awkward it is to play games or see over it to watch television from and then also try from two chairs that I'm planning to associate with it when I rearrange everything.
I've got a "pile challenge" going with one of my friends in another state where we are trying to dig ourselves out and get our houses organized. I'll never do anything just for myself; i'll just live with unopened boxes of things not built for years. It's depressing!
Now that I have an accountability buddy, I'm sending photos and showing progress and getting kudos back. I'm doing the same for them while they work on cleaning out their house. It's awesome!
I have a tendency to buy something and then let it sit in the box forever and ever and ever and ever, because I strongly associate building things with having exhausted wrists and back. Even with power tools, that pain still happens. But I really wanted to get this gaming table built.
The whole point of even getting it was to see if my tournament-standard chess set would fit in it because I would like to study and play over-the-board games, but I can't do it on ANY other table at home because I have cats.
These kings just fit under the lid. Just. Their little crowns are actually touching the lid, so I have to place it very, very carefully over them.
But they fit! This is what I wanted!
Now I can start games and work on games and study games and then just cover the board up and not have to worry about the damn cats knocking stuff over or the dogs eating my #chess pieces (all of these things have happened -- and then some).
Worth all of the 6 billion screws and bolts and everything that I had to put in. There are still some lights and cupholders that need to go in, but I'll do those tomorrow.
And then I need to find the place to put the table in the living room room because it's a lot bigger than I thought it would be. It'll be nice to have a big table that I can do puzzles on and keep chess sets in, though. At least two standard size sets will fit, and some of my smaller sets can squeeze in as well. So fun!
I need to crowd source a #chicken name!
The three new chicks arrived today, and I think I've settled on naming them Dolly, Gloria, and... I don't have a third name that goes along with this naming scheme.
I love the name Edith, but that doesn't really go with the "awesome famous ladies who died recently" naming theme. 😩
I could name her Tim, after Tim Curry. But my upright bass is already named Tim. There can be only one! And I don't really want to name her Frank (N Furter).
Thoughts? She is very teeny and dark gray right now.
I'll try to get better pictures soon when they are a little bit more settled in. They've just been through the shock of getting shipped from Iowa on a hot day yesterday and picked up at the post office today.
OK question for the wider Fedi:
Does anybody actually own an electric push #lawnmower that they like? Corded is okay.
Or even a small electric riding mower?
One of my sound aversions is I absolutely cannot stand the sound of a gas powered lawnmower.
CAN. NOT.
Second on the list is gas-powered weed whackers. There's just something about the sound of those small gas engines that makes me want to burn down the entire world to get away from it.
It does NOT matter if it's me doing the mowing or my neighbors -- the sound sets my teeth on edge and wrecks my brain. (Sometimes with brains like mine, if I'm making the sound, it's OK, but not in this case.)
I do, however, apparently need to get another mower, as I gave away my gas powered push mower a couple years ago to someone who is no longer a friend (so I can't get it back, even if I wanted to).
I'm in the Ryobi ecosystem, but I don't think they have a push mower. I only have weeds, not lawn, so I'm not looking at mowing regular, flat grass.
I do have a Ryobi weed whacker, but it is not up to the task of cutting the entire yard, even with the most tough string.
So I've ended up having to pay my yard guy to come out twice a year, to the tune of about $500 each time, to cut everything down when I haven't been able to manage it all with my measly weed whacker.
That probably means that my budget is somewhere between $500 and $1000. I'm so lawnmower averse though, that I don't even know where to start!
TIA for your thoughts.
Just an edit to say THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU, EVERYONE!
The thing I feared had NOT come to pass, so, for now, I am relieved of that dread and stress. My brain is still kind of being a jerk, but the main thing that was freaking me out has resolved.
Your pics and comments helped me get through this fraught and stressful day. So, SO helpful. I appreciate each and everyone of you (and animal and plant pals) so very much!
******
Hey everybody, my brain has been doing really terrible things to me the past two days in spite of my best efforts to take care of myself.
I would really appreciate some pet photos, some cute animal photos, any fun anecdotes that you might have -- anything to cheer me up.
My brain is just being an asshole. I simply need to wait it out. But I'd like to wait it out with some cute distraction.
TIA
I'll start with an absolutely adorable picture of my mom's cat.
I know I complain a lot about dictation on #Apple devices, but today it decided that dogs wear shoes.
I was saying the words "dog chews" in a private journal entry.
(Yep, I like to dictate my 750 words. Sometimes my hands just hurt too much to type.)
It would not type out "chews" no matter how clearly I said it. I got only "shoes" and "choose" until I said, "chew on this, you MF asshole!" which it got correct the first time -- including the swear.
I give up. I'm going back to my #typewriters. I guess I'll go order some stamps.
*stomps off in analog*
HAPPY METEOROLOGICAL FALL, my friends!
It may remain 100°F here with no rain in sight for the next eleven days, BUT IT IS FALL IN MY MIND NOW.
Ahhhhhhh! 🍂🍁🍃🌳🏕️☔️🌧️🌈
So I guess my neighbors and I are now getting into indoor farming for the fall and winter.
The whole poop lettuce thing and the whole cutting the researchers who study cyclospora thing... ouch.
I didn't think we'd be on our own this early? But here we are.
I have new grow light panels, soil, and a little indoor greenhouse that I've got to find a place to set up, and I still have a bunch of seeds for greens and cilantro from the spring. Yay!
The only thing I forgot was little pots, but I have a ton of pots sitting around outside that I should be able to repurpose.
It doesn't have to be fancy; it just has to work.
In case you've never seen a tomato hornworm covered in parasitic wasp larva casings, now you have.
Photo from my garden from 2021.
