The Opinionated Aspie

    Hansa bosbach (@Workinghans), from the Twitter Writing Community, asked me this dreaded question: What does happiness look like to you? I had to think about this one for a while. It hasn't been easy to find my natural voice to write the answer to this. How does one who's lived a terrible life for so long, answer such a question? I've had to rewrite it several times. I hate this fucking question! It's worse than when people ask me where I see myself in five years. I almost blew the most recent interview I did when they asked me that question, because I told them I can't see myself in five years. It hurts my brain to even try. They also asked me: What gets you out of bed in the morning?  I have to pee, you fucking twat!  And so that sets the tone for how I plan to answer what happiness looks like to me. It doesn't look like anything. I'm just now learning happiness for the first time in my life, and it's so fleeting, it's like chasi

From the time I entered school at five years old, I knew I wasn't like other children. Not a very original line, I know... but true nonetheless.  I had to watch very carefully what my classmates were doing in order to get through a day of lessons and even just at playtime. Studies suggest that autistic girls slip through the cracks undetected because they become master chameleons. And that may work for a while, with casual encounters, but eventually your cover gets blown once things start to get more personal. Your friends will notice strange habits you have, or feel their boundaries being crossed, or you'll hurt them in ways that frighten them. My first week in Kindergarten, I sat at a round table with a few other children, coloring on construction paper. I noticed the other kids had these really fat crayons, where mine were the regular skinny kind. A pang of envy surfaced and I couldn't help but feel like the oddball at the table. But what's more; t

As a child I wasn't praised much. Mostly we were always doing something wrong. Always getting on someone's nerves. If we weren't having fun too loud, we were being too, you know... kid-like. Not enough adult-like. We had to be trained in so many areas, and who the fuck had time for that in the 70's and 80's, right? I don't ever recall a time when I was told I was smart or funny. We were not allowed to think of ourselves as pretty or desire others to think us so. I was raised in a Pentecostal home. That is to say, the grandmother who put in most of the effort in raising my sister and I, was Pentecostal. My father was both religious and morally bankrupt at the same time.  How does one grow a belief in their own talents when one is taught that the only value they have as a child, is that which does not burden the egos and rigid belief systems, of their caregivers? My grandmother lived in fear of anything inherently human, and therefore sinful, and my fat

This poem is now dedicated to one of his truest fans: Cyclone Alan @SnapeyWapey who has given me permission to use his sketch for this post.  I was going to meet the great Alan Rickman while he was still alive I guess I thought he'd live to be at least one hundred and five We would have met at Hogwarts for a picnic lunch and tea Then spent our evening pulling pranks on that chick who plays Nanny McPhee Into the night we'd have long talks with good Sense and Sensibility  I'd ask, "Have you enjoyed your life?" He'd say, "Truly, Madly, Deeply." To meet someone who lived life so well- a Die Hard fan can dream Did I really run out of time to meet him? Unfortunately, I did it would seem You see, cancer took our beloved Alan before his time was due No magic wand can bring him back so we don't have to face this as true I guess it might be selfish of me to want him still around Possibly haunting some school

Five minutes to ten... I think I'm going to come out of my skin if I have to be here one more hour, waiting for that megalomaniac to finish his fucking client! At this point I hate how loud he talks. I hate his celebrity clients that I wish I'd never met, and I hate my position in their world. The phone rings. Probably another entitled prick! I say to myself. Unexpectedly, it's a man's voice on the other line. He's making an appointment for his boss, who works for a major production company. I'd be lying if I said that didn't excite me a little. I've only been living out here for five months, and the place I moved here from is nothing glamorous. Probably never will be. He tells me I'm the nicest person he's talked to all day. I'm not surprised. Many people here freak out on me for shit I think makes me seem ordinary. They can't believe I'm not rail thin with an eating disorder, or that I don't care about dressing to the

I help run a barber shop in an odd little suburb of Birmingham Alabama. I never choose a position of management, it just always ends up choosing me. It never works out in the long run. I'm too fair. I care too much. And that wears my soul down. Next to the strip mall our shop is in, there's a motel where people down on their luck pay cheap rent and live in squalor. I see them pass by with their bags of booze and cigarettes. They rarely come in unless they want their hair washed. All they can afford because keeping up with habits ain't cheap. Even the one prostitute who occupies a room there, doesn't make the kind of money that would pay for a cleaner lifestyle. They don't bother me. I've lived on the streets a time or two. And I never put myself above any of them just because I chose to fight harder to get away from homeless life. Yesterday two of them came in. It put my crew on edge, though they were not there to beg, and are not the dangerous kind

My first short story is published and available in digital form, on Amazon. You do not need a Kindle reader. Only the app.  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZSGZ2B8

Posted October 16, 2018 7:00 PM  The day after my nephew Cameron died I sat down at a little cafe in New Zealand, and wrote a poem. At the time I didn’t think it was very good. So I never shared it or told anyone about it. But just in case I wanted to come back to it another time, I put it in my lock box and thought nothing more of it. Today while I was sorting through that box, looking for something else and throwing away things I no longer need, I pulled that poem out and read it. Sometimes it’s better to tuck things you write away, and let the fog clear before you toss it out or try to change it. Turns out, the poem was perfect just the way it was. And with my sister Jacqueline’s permission, I post it here for you: Written: January 2018 I did everything I came here to do... Gone too soon That’s what many will say to you A waste of youth Don’t listen to them Don’t write your history of me while you’re in pain You’ll think of all the times you could have said things d

  K... here goes. My scathing review on MTV's television series Awkward.   The reason it has to be this way, is due in part to there being a particular formulation for romantic comedies, coming of age shows, and love stories that I am increasingly beginning to resent. And Awkward was supposed to be one of those shows I was expecting to break through that barrier completely. It didn't.   You know the formula I'm talking about, right? The one where girl meets boy--- girls becomes obsessed with boy--- boy could take her or leave her--- girl needs boy to validate her worth and existence and will do anything to achieve this. Will he? Then when he does, only one season has been accomplished, so there needs to be a break up. They push and they pull, and other lovers come and go in between. An incestuous circle of friendships are formed. Everyone betrays everyone. But through it all, the one true couple that we all desperately need to see end up together, continue to build o

  I'm just going to say this as plainly as anyone can. I am disappointed with my life.    I know I'm not supposed to be. I know I'm supposed to count my blessings, and think about all those children starving in third world countries who still find a reason to smile. If I just stop long enough to think about how much better I have it than them, right?     But the truth is, I am staring. I've been starving my whole life. Not from lack of food... though I know what that feels like. It's more like... my soul has been starving. I bet you know what I'm talking about. Maybe you keep chanting some kind of mantra that keeps you from feeling it entirely, but you know it's eating you up.   Didn't I have children who could fill up that void completely? How could I be so ungrateful? Am I saying that they were not enough to fill my heart to capacity? Shouldn't I feel my life's work was completed the moment I became a mother?   My children gave me

   I was going to write a scathing blog post about how slightly disappointed I was with the last three seasons of 'Awkward.' now that I've finally watched them, and yes, you read that right... I did use the word "scathing" to describe how I was planning to write about something only slightly disappointing to me.   But there's a matter far more pressing I think I should write about first, and the reason I let you, the reader, know about what I would have written had nothing pressed at me harder, is because telling you how I would write a review shredding something that brought me pleasure, many laughs and a great escape, perfectly encapsulates my personality and my aspie brain.   Of course... I'm still going to write that scathing review. No matter how much sentimental residue clings to me once I'm finished with this one. I still have to be me.   For a short while now, I have been working a job that has nothing to do with hair. Kind of a summer

  If there's one television series I am haunted by 20+ years after its making, My So-Called Life is that. I know I'm not unique in this experience. I know about the massive campaign that was run to try and save it. I've read the fan pages and the interviews. People want to know what would have happened next. Not only because it had a short 19 episode life, but because it had so much potential for greatness no other of its kind did. Its cancellation left everyone hanging after the creator had only just begun fleshing out these characters and their relationships. Relationships and situations that would have only filled the pages of half a novel were it a book. So it feels like someone tore in half the only copy in existence, and burned the half with all the answers in it. Those questions will never get an answer. Not by the original creator anyway. Oh fine, so two decades go by and she's willing to give us a tiny taste of what was coming next, in an interview. But t

  I posted the meme you see above to my Instagram last year, and it cracks me up every single time I see it, no matter how many times! The look on that kid is so priceless too. It's what one of my daughters looks like when she's online, and how my other daughter looks when it comes to Anime. And perhaps I would have looked this happy about my interests too, if I hadn't had the kind of upbringing I had. But perhaps not. I can't really know if I would be any different than what I was.   After all, I'd still be autistic and I'd also still be me. We aren't all carbon copies of some original form. That being said, I may not be able to speak for all autistic people on how they handle their obsessions, but I can  tell you that we all tend to be hyper-focused on what we're interested in, and little else. These "special interests" may manifest differently from person to person, or you may not even know someone has them if like me (when I was young)

  To begin with, I didn’t get into Dawson’s Creek when it was first shown- 1998 to 2003. Every once in a while I’d run across it and attempt to follow along, but found it cringy back then. Even Jen Lindley's tragic tale of teen sex and boozy rave parties-- the reasons she got shipped off to Capeside, couldn't hold the smallest flame to my real life script.   Right off, her storyline wasn't convincing, because as worldly as she supposedly was by sixteen, her choosing to hang out with a bunch of wide-eyed virgins who are terrified to leave Neverland, makes no sense to me. In real life she would have gravitated to a more dysfunctional crew. Though I will add that she'd probably go after Dawson as a conquest. And then... the virginal Dawson would have been deflowered by the third episode, and they'd have to figure out some other way to draw out the whole "who's going to win Joey over the right way " saga.   I suppose it was wise of them to write

  "Old and set in my ways."   I hope I never hear those words comes out of my mouth. "Can't teach an old dog new tricks" but... "you learn something new every day"-- what?? I can honestly say that I'm just now really growing up and I'm forty-four years old. Yes, I have a developmental disorder, so it kind of goes without saying that some of the growing up that came so naturally to others at a much younger age, would be delayed greatly and more challenging for me.   Yet here I am learning and growing, and even growing up in ways it might have been thought before, that I'd never be able to. I guess I had a lot of wrong teachers. By saying that, I don't mean wrong with a period on the end-- I just mean wrong for me. Wrong for me-- the examples set before me with too much subtext I couldn't read. Wrong for me-- the standards I was told to reach for without explaining them in a language I could understand. Wrong for me-- a so