'Sugar High' has become an uncomfortable phrase.

I apologize for the ranting nature of this post but I’ve been kind of holding this in my head and I kind of need to just spit it out now, so here’s a bunch of stuff I’ve learned recently that I’m really kind of... very pissed about. Ready? Here we go:

--

This really all started due to a documentary called ‘Fed Up’ on Netflix (and then one called 'Hungry for Change', both of which are good and you may want to watch them if you're at all interested in this type of thing).

'Fed Up' sort of walks you through how all the sugar in our 'food-products' - like, not even food anymore honestly - is the main cause of obesity and the diseases you typically associate with it in the U.S. and around the world today, due to the standard American diet being exported around the world.

This is basically because sugar, when ingested in large quantities, overloads the liver. When the liver is overloaded, it triggers the pancreas to produce insulin, which causes fat storage. It’s sugar, not fat or calories (though those are still important), that contributes the most to America’s struggling with weight and health.

Let's take a simple example: When you eat 160 calories of, say, almonds, everything in them is absorbed slowly, so your blood sugar rises slower and for longer, meaning you don’t need nearly as much insulin to bring it back down. You’re also getting dietary fiber and healthy fats and a bunch of other things. On the flip side, 160 calories of soda is pure sugar, and so it’s absorbed through the portal system to the liver - which means it hits the liver all at once, which causes blood sugar spikes, which causes rapid insulin production, which is essentially why we have almost 60 thousand cases of type 2 diabetes in children in this country.

For a little more context, type 2 diabetes used to be called ‘adult onset diabetes’, because there were no cases in children. Not anymore. We have medically obese six-month-olds, mostly because of this crap. Even the people who look skinny and ‘healthy’ usually have fat collected around their internal organs because of all this overdosing on sugar, which of course can cause the exact same health issues as someone who is visibly overweight.

So, how did this happen?

Well, essentially, back in 1977, there was this thing called ‘The McGovern Report’, which was a nutrition report that basically said that Americans should limit their intake of beef, sugar, and dairy products for optimal health. Of course, the beef, sugar, and dairy industries went nuts and pushed them to change the report. They did. And the recommendations to ‘reduce intake’ of anything were scratched from the final version in favor of encouraging Americans to buy more 'lean' products. When the skim milk (milk without the fat) idea really took hold in the 80s, all that milk fat had to go somewhere. Well, the easiest thing for them to do was to make it into cheese. The problem was that soon enough, they had more cheese than they really knew what to do with, but instead of pushing the dairy industry to cut back, they just said ‘Hey, why don’t we help them sell more cheese?’

So they did. Now the cheese section in almost any grocery story is overstuffed with all manner of cheese and cheese-food product.

A similar thing happened between the World Health Organization and the Bush Administration where they recommenced that no more than 10% of daily calories should come from sugar. And what basically happened was that the administration threatened to pull all of their funding from the WHO if the report was not revised. They extorted the WHO. And now the report states that no more than 25% of daily calories should come from sugar - 2.5x the WHO’s recommendation. That’s why you never see a percentage listed beside sugar on the label of any food in the U.S. You’d be seeing 150% or 225% of your daily value.

And what gets me the most is that this is in everything.

80% of all foods in almost any grocery store have added sugar in them and why? Because when we as a nation realized that we were, to put it simply, ‘getting fat’, we decided that fat was the enemy. So we had it reduced or removed. Everything is ‘fat-free’ or ‘reduced fat’. But here’s the problem: when you remove fat from food, it tastes awful. It tastes like cardboard. So what to we do? We pour in some sugar to cover the taste. Kid’s cereals, soft drinks, candy, vitamin water, salad dressing - damn near everything that didn’t come directly or almost directly from a plant.

And these overabundances of sugar are, most obviously, also found in candies. Candy which is marketed directly to children primarily because of the addictive qualities of the sugar it contains. A child who is well and truly addicted to sugar is likely to be a customer for life.

What people need to understand is that sugar is a concentrated substance, like high fructose corn syrup - and cocaine. When you concentrate a substance like this, you remove all the nutritional buffers that the plant naturally has to help you digest things and not get sick. Cocaine comes from the leaves of the Coca plant which is widely used in tea, as an herbal remedy. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with drinking that tea - there’s no ‘high’ or adverse affects associated with it. And there is a safe threshold for sugar, under 25 grams a day, just like it’s safe to drink the tea. Am I worried about fruit sugar, which you naturally get from eating an apple? No. Am I worried about apple juice? Yes.

Studies involving lab mice have shown that sugar is around 8 times more addictive than cocaine. One study consisted of 43 cocaine-addicted lab mice. These 43 mice were given the choice between cocaine and sugar-water over a period of fifteen days. 40 out of the 43 chose the sugar-water.

And there will industry-funded study after industry-funded study claiming that there’s no link or that the science isn’t there when we’ve all had this knowledge since at least 1977 and no one in power has done anything about it. Which is exactly what the tobacco industries did when cigarettes were linked to cancer.

And honestly, I’m just somewhere between pissed off and a bit scared about the whole thing. This was a little like taking the red pill, I think. I’m sorry to potentially drag you along like that, I just really needed to get this all down and out of my head...

Regardless of any of this, I have been about two or three days without getting over 25 grams of added sugar a day. I'm actually tying to limit added sugar as much as reasonably possible and honestly? I'm feeling very good right now. I feel lighter and much more focused and just... better.

So here's hoping that life continues this recent trend.

Lord, Lord, that greed, it'll kill ya!

And that title, while very true, has precious little to do with the rest of this post.

So... it's been a while.

A lot's been going on, honestly. Plus I just haven't had a lot to say.

I've made some life decisions, both in terms of writing and in terms of... well, general life, and I'm currently sitting here at about 12:30 thinking over these changes and whether or not I have a deep, gut-feeling kind of problem with any of them.

And honestly? No.

And that seems a little odd to me, but I also don't want to over-think and talk myself out of doing something that could be really fun and freeing, and maybe even do some good in some way? I mean, stranger things have happened.

For those wondering, I'm talking about officially including erotica in my writing rotation. I sort of feel like I 'should' have a problem with it from a religious standpoint, but I don't have that deep down, gut-reaction 'don't get on the plane' feeling about writing stuff like that, and I would expect that I would. Or at least a hint of it.

I don't know. I mean, I'll take some time here soon and think it through just to be sure. You know, like actually pray about it and about my life direction in general, like I do with ... Well, I was going to say like I do with all major life decisions but I'm having a hard time remembering when I've made any proper major life decisions in past. Like, ones that I actually intended to do something about. I'm not sure there have really been any. I've always kind of just... done things because they were there to do. That's why I went to college, at least. Seemed like the thing to do.

Huh.

Maybe the depression is finally lifting a bit? *knocks on anything even resembling wood*

Either way, I really do need to jump in on my own writing. I'm finding it more and more difficult to believe that I still don't have a book out there. Like, at least one. Not the right time, I guess.

For the immediate future, I think I'm going to go try to finish writing a chapter of this ghost-writing project I've got, and then maybe read 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'.

Thing's will work out, just the way they're supposed to. I don't doubt that I'm a writer - now it's just a matter of pinning down what I'm writing. It's all under control ^w^

(I actually... want to go to church again. And that's odd because being around my father kind of soured me on the whole 'church-goer' thing for a while. I mean, I want to find one where I don't feel like I'm being looked down on for being honest about myself, but if I can find one like that, it'd be nice to go again.)

Until next time, then~

Love,
Rabbit

Things I Want + A Thought or Two

First order of business: Things I want and will probably buy at some point. Because I am a geek. And we all know it.

-- This phone case

Why? Because it's Dead Space and I forgot how much I loved that game/series. Yeah, it's kinda run-and-gun and all that, but the world it's set in is just so interesting~

-- This dog-tag

Why? See above reason ^

-- And... all of the tie-in Dead Space novels

Pretty much just because I forget how much the whole story kinda rocked my world.

But that isn't the main point here. The main point of this post is not a short list of stuff I might buy once I have the funds for it (and after I buy my cosplay stuff), nor is it the next part, which will be a short segment on the goodness that it Chris Baty's updated and revised version of No Plot? No Problem! No, the point is what comes ofter that, which I think is an important thing to consider. For right now though, I give you a minor creative revelation:

I wasn't too sure about No Plot? No Problem! going in, but honestly, I'm 105 pages in right now and I am feeling a lot better about the creative process as a whole. Like, I'm not even sure why but it seems more accessible now, like ti used to. I used to just jump in all the time and have fun figuring things out as I went. More often than not, I would wind up with something at least half-way decent at the end of it. But then I kind of fell into the same trap that most people do when they start to get older (he says from his comfortable 22-year-old spot on the chronological map) - I started to worry about competence.

Now, don't get me wrong, I get that competence is a very good thing and that there are places where flinging five feet, three inches of screaming hot Stop It at any issue that may decide to raise its horned and feathered head would be a great way to go. The thing is, what about all those other times? There are some places where wanting to appear professional and like you're always in control (or even like you have any clue at all about what you're doing) can really drag you down.

It turns out that for me - and probably for most people in some way or another - 'anything creative' is one of those situations. In fact, for creative types, it's usually 'Situation One'.

So, that's the mindset: Just write. Worry later. (I was going to say 'No Rules, Just Write', but that's also kind of an Outback Steakhouse slogan and I'm a vegetarian so... yeah.)

But that's also not my point.

My point is this: God does not make mistakes.

Now, anyone who knows me well knows that I am a Christian but that I am a liberal Christian (which basically means that I'm very likely to defend God and gay rights in the same breath) and I have some trouble with lot of people out there in the big, bad world because of this little phrase.

But here's my take on it, and I like to think it's a simple take: God does not make mistakes, and that means that I am as I am intentionally.

Just to walk you through the current list (I say 'current' because I'm still sort of figuring a few things out), I am: asexual (does not experience sexual attraction to any gender), polyromantic (experiences romantic attraction to multiple, but not all, genders), genderqueer (umbrella term: used for someone who identifies as a neither, both, or a combination of male and female genders), likely transmasculine (someone who was assigned female at birth but identifies as more male than female), and possibly polyamorous (the state of having (or the ability to have) multiple committed relationships with many people at the same time, with full knowledge and consent of all involved) .

And all this weirdness (at least weirdness from a societal standpoint) is okay. Why? Because it's honest and it's not hurting anyone. And part of the reason I feel the way I do about this whole thing is that I am also a writer and more than that, I am a writer who enjoys writing about people like them, especially Christian people like them (though I'm generally not someone who enjoys very heavy religions themes in books, so it may not come up explicitly). And I find this level of deep support for who a person is at their deepest level to be severely lacking on many levels. The idea that queer Christians (to use a blanket term for a very diverse community) exist and are happy and supported should not be a revolutionary thing ever. A God who loves his children just as they are, with all of our shortcomings and weaknesses and general strangeness - none of which is a surprise to Him, mind - is not some kind of revolutionary idea. From Sunday School up, you are taught that God is love. I wish more people would set their signs down and believe that. This whole message would not carry nearly the same weight if I was a straight, cisgender female. So... here I am.

But that is just my opinion. And so I'm going to move on, move forward, and try to live honestly, even though it's difficult, especially when you take the larger society into account with any sort of frequency. Just pay attention to that little voice - the one that tends to let you know if you're screwing something up, like a gut reaction to a bad decision. And, basically, unless it's illegal, immoral, or fattening, I'm just going to worry about much. Worrying makes me doubt things and doubting things makes me unhappy and why would I do anything that made me unhappy? I'll do enough actual work to pay my bills and whatnot but aside from actual 'survival costs' like that, I'm just gonna be me and see what happens.

Because, damn it, I'm interesting. And I've got a lot to say.

Okay. So that was odd, what just happened, and probably a bit too personal but hey, it's my blog. As for the immediate future, I think I'm going to go get something to eat, watch an episode of Sherlock with Mom, and then maybe attempt my old method of jumping into the creative ocean face first again. It's been way too long since I've gotten a sinus cavity full of freezing cold creativity.

Until later, then. I hope you all have a great day.

The Days After a Long Trip

are always really weird.

Okay. So. Here we go with the wrap-up.

I left from my house to drive (well, ride, technically since Mom was driving) an hour to a bigger city where we could then catch the train for about an hour and a half to Seattle. They recently redid King Street Station with a lot of detail:

That's part of the ceiling.

I know, right?

I killed the time which was not spent gawking at the impressive detail work of the Mad Fretworker of Seattle by reading this charming little thing:

which ends on a very unexpected note, which I will not spoil here. I can only say this: Impulsive, dumb gay vampires. This series is full of them. And I love it.

Anywho, we sat there on these cool-looking but hella uncomfortable benches for a while until our train pulled in, at which point we were required to lift about 20 pounds of luggage (mine being split unevenly between a backpack and an overnight bag) and shag our asses up these twisty, narrow little stairs (up two and turn, up four and turn, up three and turn) into this passage that wants to be a hallway when it grows up.

Thankfully, this did not result in injury and hence did not result in a lawsuit, which meant that the trip could continue uninterrupted.

Our car attendant on the trip up was a distinctly average-looking man who made a career out of doing the bare minimum of work required to keep his job. In spite of this, the trip was fairly pleasant so long as one could ignore the frigid temperatures and the fact that the heat in our room was less of a 'heater' and more of a decorative plate which at times felt warmer than the air in the car only by virtue of the fact that it was sitting directly in the sun for most of the day.

This was taken from Minot, ND. As you can see, Minot is scenically located on the rim of the Ninth Circle.

Arctic conditions aside, all was pretty quiet on the ride up. Union Station at rush hour, on the other hand - not so calm as a private sleeper car on a three-day train trip.

Luckily, the people we stayed with (who we now all consider to be family - seriously, we all kind of fit together like puzzle pieces) are beyond awesome and they have a super-cute dog:

I dare you to look at that picture and not smile, even a little bit.

Now... a lot happened over this trip but I'll try to break it down a little more so I don't get all confused. One of the first things that happened was Shedd Aquarium:

And a whole bunch of other awesome stuff. Because that place is huge. Like 'five hours spent in there' huge.

Really, we went a lot of amazing places. The whole trip is kind of a blur but I distinctly remember an antique store (where I found the Anne Rice Vampire Chronicles book Blood and Gold), two bookstores - Half Price Books and Unabridged Books - where I found more Anne Rice, a Stephen King book, a bunch of stuff I've been wanting to read and even a couple proper quitter strips, and then a place called The Alley (where I found this stuff):

all of which are awesome. The shirt says 'Keep Calm and Kill Zombies'. I mean, come on. A good binder, that shirt, some like cargo pants, maybe some boots, and basically this hair and makeup thing:

essentially equals 'my current aesthetic'.

And all of that is to say nothing of the food. The food was pretty much amazing across the board. Like, look at this thing:

Just look at that. Yep.

The whole trip was like... really surreal in a weird way. Like, one of the things you have to know about me is that I don't do a lot of things. I don't talk to checkers in stores or really even go through lines myself. I don't often order my own food. I don't stay off-line for days on end to go walking around a huge city in the gently falling snow and visit bookstores with Darling, her family, and my mom.

But I did all of that. Easily. It was even fun.

I don't even know.

But I'm trying to hold onto that feeling I had in that city. It was something like endless creativity marked by this odd sense of calm. I liked that feeling. That feeling was like being able to handle things. I like being able to handle things.

So, this post has taken me way too long to complete and it's going up before I go to bed regardless so... Tomorrow. Tomorrow will probably be spent reading and writing a bit, which is quite possibly the best way to spend a day.

For right now though, it's getting late and I have to be up at a reasonable time to go hang out with my grandparents so, I'm going to wrap this up and go try to sleep.

Good night, and I hope you all have a really great day~

The Dangers of Many Things

Namely, the dangers of staying up late, the dangers of writing, and the dangers of reading.

Which, upon closer inspection, sound like a series. Like 'And next on my list is Rabbit Hart's 'The Dangers of Many Things' series. I have the first three books here - The Dangers of Staying up Late, The Dangers of Writing, and The Dangers of Reading.'

Anyway.

First order of business: I have found a site I truly love. And it is this site [right here].

(For those of you who don't want to click that, it goes to a site called the Book Depository, which is great and you should go there. That place makes me feel like I need to set aside a 'book budget' each month just for this place. It is a beautiful thing.)

Secondly, I am planning.

I realize that I plan a lot and not much seems to come of it most times but I feel like being serious for a while here.

I am planning on using Camp NaNoWriMo (in July) to revamp a story of mine that I'm still a bit in love with but that I hadn't really gotten around to, you know, fixing. And I'm like unusually focused about this right now. I even bought a book (which I'd kind of been wanting to read for a while, honestly) off of a gift card just so I could write the main relationship correctly.

You know, it's weird: that trip to Chicago really kinda shook things up. (A longer post about that trip is coming, by the by, I just haven't finished it yet.) I guess it might have made me realize that A) there's way more to life than just this little logging town and the comfortable rut Mom and I were essentially living in, at least mentally, and B) a lot of my productivity is tied to how much I'm reading. As soon as I finish a book, I want to do two things - pick up another one, and go write one myself.

So.

I'm going to hang out for a little bit longer. Maybe finish reading Marley & Me. Tomorrow will probably be spent figuring out just what the hell I mean to do exactly, watching The Venture Bros., making awesome food for dinner, and writing things.

I'm oddly happy about that simple prospect.

Three Points About Me (That Need to Change)

1) I self-sabotage (and I'm pissed off about it)

This first point I noticed because of the Seattle Seahawks. Namely, them losing Super Bowl 49 (not bothering with the Roman numerals right now) because of a single bad call. As a result, I had a minor break down (I say 'minor' because it only involved crying and shutting myself in my office for over an hour rather than breaking things). My mom actually figured out what was probably the cause of this: They were probably one call away from a win. And then someone screwed it up. Much like how I tend to get fairly far when I'm actually committed to something but I'll never win because when I'm close to winning, some part of my brain tells me 'You don't deserve this.' And then some other part goes, 'I agree.' So I screw something simple up. And I never get anywhere.

Seeing that on a grand scale is really fucking annoying, and slightly soul-crushing, hence all the crying.

So, an honest thank you to the Seahawks for helping me figure myself out. Now get back out there.

2) I act mostly under a false idea of how others see me

This is really a shorter, more general statement but I've caught myself doing things/not doing things/backing down from ideas, just because I was pretty sure that someone would hate me if I did something a certain way, even though I had no real evidence of that. It wasn't ever really a conscious thing but it was enough to mess me up on multiple occasions.

Not productive at all, what I'm doing.

3) I'm insecure.

Sadly I had to notice this because it usually took me at least a week to respond to a friend's emails even when I know being left hanging is stressful for her. I never mean to cause her to feel wounded or like she's being ignored (she's my friend - I mean, who would do that kinda crap?) but I just could not get myself together enough to answer. We also had an RP idea we were going to do. Been talking about it for a while now. Never happened. Why? Because I'm surprisingly insecure and have issues with envy.

[Quick vocab lesson: Jealousy is when you're afraid someone will take what you have. Envy is wanting what someone else has. What I feel is 'envy'.]

She is a very good writer, from what I've seen. She also has some of the most interesting and original ideas I think I've ever seen. And I wish my mind didn't go blank when I'm trying to talk about simple things like fandoms and AUs and headcanons with her because I'm just dead-set convinced that pretty soon she's going to realize that all my ideas are terrible and have been done a million times in better ways or else just aren't that interesting, and hence will leave.

Obviously, I don't want this to happen being that she is, as I've stated earlier, my friend.

Bottom line: I feel so wretched and uncreative next to her it makes it extremely difficult to focus on anything else. And that really sucks because she's super nice and I sure as hell don't want to lose out on a good friendship because of my own low self-esteem.

So, this concludes the short list of things I need to be working on.

For right now, though, I think I'm going to go finish a book I've been hacking my way though. I really need a few more quitter strips (by which I mean 'bookmarks'). I've just been using an index card lately.

'Poor Kid's Quitter Strip'

Five in the morning

Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. Unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book; who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye. -- John Milton, Areopagitica: A speech of Mr John Milton for the liberty of unlicenced printing to the Parliament of England
I remembered this quote (well, I remembered a part of it and then had to look it up) and thought it would be good to keep it here so I can come back to it.

I don't know what today's going to be. Like at all.

I feel very strange (though not exactly bad) and I'm just hoping today's a good day.

Insomnia

Simple title, very annoying issue.

I'd imagine it's a little like the madness of being caught in Flatland, understanding something more but being largely unable to articulate it, much to the frustration and annoyance of yourself and everyone around you.

It's after nine in the morning. I know this because I have yet to fall asleep. The reason for this is partially my own fault (as in, not shutting my computer, watching a movie, reading an entire book, etc. when I was meant to be asleep) and partially out of my control (I have too many half-formed pans in my head and I lack both the follow-through to complete and the inner-peace to let rest for another day, I'm distractingly hungry but I have no desire to eat, achingly tired but there's a certain guilt attached to sleeping at this hour of the day which makes it even more difficult to shut off my brain.)

And basically, when it comes right down to it, I don't want to sleep because I'm tried; I want to sleep to shut out the world. Example, I know my messed up sleep schedule annoys my mother. If I'm asleep, I don't have to think about how much I'm annoying her (currently, in my mind, just by virtue of the fact that I exist). Until I wake back up, that is, at which point the cycle just starts all over again, namely: I've slept all day, meaning that I am once again not tired when it's turns night, meaning that I'm unlikely to be able to sleep over the course of the night, meaning that I'm once again up too late and feeling like a hack and a failure for doing nothing of value.

I realize that recovery of any sort is not a strict linear progression from 'ill' to 'well' but rather it contains all manner of backslides and inconvenient stretches in which is perfectly impossible to do anything you feel is useful in the slightest. This includes writing a coherent sentence of fiction, making any money at all, living up to your own laughably low goals, hell - even keeping up with my friends is a chore for me right now. Do you know why it takes me so long to get out of bed in the morning? It's not that kind of pale laziness that afflicts all school-aged children in one form or another - it's the paralyzing weight of unknowing that I can't seem to avoid nor decouple from an intense desire to simply lie there and doze and think (about the physics of higher dimensions, about the inherent difficulties in attempting to guide a larger society into acceptance of outliers as an essential part of the human experience, about the strange nebulous thing that is authorship, about the idea that I as a human being have the right to define my own experiences and insist on being made comfortable just as everyone else, about the weird and wonderful thing that is conlangs, anything).

All of this giving the completely understandable outward appearance of laziness (or possibly depression, depending on your reading), but I might argue that it's more a kind of... ugh, what's the word?

It's a kind of vicious cycle wherein everything (misspellings, simple noises, etc.) is unduly annoying and this feeds an ongoing inner monologue I seem to have acquired which makes it very clear that, regardless of what my time is spent doing, it is always wasted.

This makes some sense if I've been watching a movie when I could/should have been working. Yes, in all cases the movie was educational for me, but that won't cover the 70 bucks a month I owe until, like, May... sadly. It also gets nothing written, which hinders me even more because being unable to write is a strange and kind of sickly feeling - it's a bit like feeling a talent for a thing you often find so much joy in being slowly drained from you, as though some vast and uncaring part of the universe perceived it as venom welling in a wound and elected to remove it on a whim.

As a result, I remain in this little admittedly comfortable room, thinking in circles and becoming increasingly annoyed by my complete inability to function like a 'normal' person. Yes, I know, I should be focused far more on working within my limits rather than breaking my hands on the walls attempting to get through them (because, spoiler: that never works), but what happens when your supposed 'recovery' hits a stretch where you're perpetually 'out of spoons'? It's difficult to do anything when all you feel capable of focusing on at the moment is thinking, sleep, and possibly eating enough to avoid death.

In the long run, it may be better to roll with these moments and just know that they'll pass (and probably quicker if you'd stop stressing) but some part of my brain always starts jumping up and down with 'That's not good enough and you're an utter joke of a human being.' And that wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for that other part that always stands up and says 'I agree.'

Basically, it's all a rich tapestry of self-imposed guilt, an easily angered and overwhelmed self, complex issues of gender/sexuality/creativity and my relationship not only to the works of others but to others themselves that just can't be answered quickly, a complicated relationship with my place in the world both as part of the GSM and as an artist, and probably some manner of internalized ablism. I feel it's safe to say that all of this is currently contributing to the surprising lack of both focus and give-a-damn.

That's basically what's been on my mind lately. And that's why I didn't sleep last night.

I'm still not sure what to do about that.

Thoughts About Things

Here's a thing.

This thing is a chart. A chart which I fit about 95% of.

I'm unsure how to feel about this aside from vaguely relieved that all my strangeness does in fact have a reason.

Here's what the chart says, for those of you who don't want to/can't open it. I realize this is probably way outdated since it's for Asperger's which I believe was consolidated into the more general ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) as of the DSM V but still, I put the things which sound like me in italics.

Appearance/Personal Habits

• Dresses comfortably due to sensory issues and practicality.
• Will not spend much time on grooming and hair. Hairstyles usually have to be 'wash and wear'. Can be quite happy not grooming at all at times.
• Eccentric personality; may be reflected in appearance.
• Is youthful for her age, in looks, dress, behavior, and tastes.
• Usually a little more expressive in face and gesture than her male counterpart.
• May have many androgynous traits despite an outwardly feminine appearance. Thinks of herself as half-male/half-female (well-balanced anima/animus)
• May not have a strong sense of identity. Can be very chameleon-like, especially before diagnosis.
• Enjoys reading and films as a retreat, often sci-fi, fantasy, children's. Can have favorites which are a refuge.
• Uses control as a stress management technique, rules, discipline, rigid in certain habits, which will contradict her seeming unconventionality.
• Usually happiest at home or in other controlled environments.

Intellectual/giftedness/education/vocation

• May have been diagnosed as autistic or Asperger's when young, or may have been thought of as gifted, shy, sensitive, etc. May also have had obvious or severe learning deficits.
• Often musical, artistic
• May have a savant skill or strong talent/s
• May have a strong interest in computers, games, science, graphic design, inventing, things of a technological and visual nature. More verbal thinkers may gravitate toward writing, languages, culture studies, psychology.
• May be a self-taught reader, been hyperlexic as a child, and will possess a wide variety of other self-taught skills as well.
• May be highly educated but will have had to struggle with the social aspects of college. May have one or many partial degrees.
• Can be very passionate about a course of study or job, and then change direction or go completely cold on it very quickly.
• Will often have trouble holding a job and may find employment daunting.
• Highly intelligent but can be slow to comprehend due to sensory and cognitive processing issues.
• Will not do well with verbal instructions - needs to write down or draw diagram.
• Will have obsessions but they are not as unusual as her male counterpart (less likely to be a 'train-spotter').

Emotional/Physical

• Emotionally immature and emotionally sensitive
• Anxiety and fear are predominate emotions
• More open to talking about feelings and emotional issues than males with AS
• Strong sensory issues - sounds, sights, smells, touch - and prone to overload. (Less likely to have taste/food texture issues than males)
• Moody and prone to bouts of depression. May have been diagnosed as bi-polar or manic depressive (common comorbid of autism/AS) while the AS diagnosis was missed.
• Probably given several different prescriptions to treat symptoms. Will be very sensitive to medications and anything else she puts in her body so may have had adverse reactions.
• 9 out of 10 have mild to severe Gastro-intestinal difficulties - e.g. ulcers, acid reflux, IBS, etc.
• Stims to sooth when sad or agitated: rocking, face-rubbing, humming, finger flicking, leg bouncing, finger or foot tapping.
• Similarly physical when happy: hand flapping, clapping, singing, jumping, running around, dancing, bouncing.
• Prone to temper or crying meltdowns, even in public, sometimes over seemingly small things due to sensory or emotional overload.
• Hates injustice and hates to be misunderstood - this can incite anger and rage.
• Prone to mutism when stressed or upset, esp. after a meltdown. Less likely to stutter than male counterparts, but may have a raspy voice, monotone at times, when stressed or sad.

Social/Relationships

• Words and actions are often misunderstood by others.
• Perceived to be cold-natured and self-centered; unfriendly.
• Is very outspoken at times, may get fired up when talking about passions/obsessive interests.
• Can be very shy or mute.
• Like her male counterpart, will shut down in social situations once overloaded but is generally better at socializing in small doses. May even give the appearance of skilled, but it is a 'performance'.
• Doesn't go out much. Will prefer to go out with partner only or children if she has them.
• Will not have many girlfriends and will not do 'girly' things like shopping with them or have get-togethers to 'hang out'.
• Will have a close friend or friends in school, but not once adulthood is reached. (This is actually backwards for me.)
• May or may not want to have a relationship. If she is in a relationship, she probably takes it very seriously but she may choose to remain celibate or alone.
• Due to sensory issues, will either really enjoy sex or strongly dislike it.
• If she likes a male, she can be extremely, noticeably awkward in her attempts to let him know, e.g. she may stare when she sees him, or call him repeatedly. This is because she fixates and doesn't understand societal gender roles. This will change with maturity. (I have some issues with the way this one is handled/phrased but I can't quite articulate why...)
• Often prefers the company of animals but not always due to sensory issues.

So, as you can see by all the italics, if this is still any indication of what's looked for when diagnosing someone who is DFAB with some kind of ASD, well... yeah.

I was trying to think if I had any other self-taught skills but I guess typing, painting, some graphic design-esque things (like making book covers) could count toward that.

Also, as something that's only loosely tied to this, here's a partial list of characters I headcanon as Autistic:

- Barnaby Brooks Jr. (Tiger and Bunny)

It's a lot of small things with him, really. Like this from the team: "Barnaby's current ability to fake friendly looks and behaviour is the result of much work — as a teenager he was practically expressionless".

Essentially, how he is now is the result of what basically amounts to a lot of scripting.

His habit of picking pickles off of things could just be a general dislike of them or it could also be the result of sensory issues. (Sometimes they squeak off of my teeth when I do eat them and that makes me kind of... crawly.)

There's also the apparent lack of social skills when he's not doing something that he might have a mental script for (like in an interview), and the fixation on opera, which could be seen as a special interest depending on your reading.

The general reading of things like his fainting in episode 19 is a comorbid anxiety disorder/panic disorder along with PTSD, which was shown fairly clearly in previous episodes, with the most obvious symptom being nightmares and flashbacks. I have absolutely no issue with this reading at all - I think it's likely accurate, but it's interesting to me to look at the same scene with the idea that it also could have been a meltdown.

Meltdowns present a little differently in everyone but they can often look like a severe panic episode - crying, shaking, shortness of breath, racing heartbeat, general weakness/inability to force movement, etc.

(I also headcanon him as asexual, but that's a separate thing.)

A couple others on this list are:

- Randy Ryo MacLean (FAKE)
- Joseph Oda (The Evil Within)
- Touko Fukawa (Dangan Ronpa)

Speaking of Touko, I kinda want to buy this. I'd still need her glasses and school uniform, though. Still, it's cheaper than a Barnaby Brooks Jr. cosplay.

That was kind of rambling but yeah, that's about there things are right now.

I had a mild meltdown just a little while earlier and... yeah, that was not fun. I pulled through it though. That's something to be glad about. I haven't actually been able to do that in a while. It's kinda awkward all around though since I'm in that stage where I'm feeling better but I A) don't want to move too fast in case I scare the 'okay-ness' off and B) don't feel like it 'should' by over yet so I'm not sure how to act.

I think I'll go get something to eat (since my stomach is actually growling... pretty loudly) and then maybe go curl up and watch something on Netflix.

Yeah. That seems like a decent plan.

Planning

Okay, so.

Here's the thing: I'm thinking about making 2015 a more... honest year.

By that I mean, what am I interested in?

The obvious answers are: Writing, art, films which make you think, books which also make you think, good food - preferably not out of a box or bag or out of a box/bag with under five ingredients listed on it and/or where I know at least 99% of the things in it, video games, travel, and music.

The less obvious answers are: Equality, feminism, legitimate social justice, free speech (and the responsibilities thereof), MOGAI rights, and in general all manner of things which necessitate the need of a sign which simply reads 'Sorry for the inconvenience. We're trying to change the world.'

Smaller components of this whole long list of mine are:

Sign up for Figment

Because it's always nice to be around writers, and it might be kind of cool to serialize a story or two there. I think a lot of what's tripping me up is the fact that there's the expectation that when people are artists, they must see themselves in a certain way or their voices are less valid.

I'm slowly realizing that this is not the case.

Whether you see yourself as some grand gatekeeper, some wild and wrathful thing channeling raw energy into something contained and beautiful in its quiet ferocity, or simply as someone who's doing the best they can with the talent they possess and if someone connects with that, well that's a wonderful thing, the fact remains that you are an artist. No amount of internal or external force will change that simple fact.

And that's a freeing thing to realize because it allows you to act like you yourself would act, rather than wasting time being concerned with how the world will see you. Not that this gives you free rein to saw whatever you want with no consequence, far from it, but it does give you a much higher chance of being able to stand behind whatever stance you take on the important issues of the time.

That digressed a bit, but the point remains the same: Artists matter. Artist communities matter.

Art in General

Speaking of the art world, I recently found out about a contemporary Chinese artist by the name of Ai Weiwei - the man who filled a huge hall in London's Tate Modern with 100,000,000 tiny handmade, hand-painted porcelain sunflower seeds:

and spearheaded the effort to record the names of the 5,212 children killed in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, making a recording of the names (with a run time of 3 hours and 41 minutes) as well as straightening out 150 tons of steel rebar retrieved from the collapsed schools (which many blame for the deaths as the construction was shoddy and the buildings crushed those who were sheltering in them during the quake), and placing it together in the shape of a rolling landscape.

I've decided that I like him. Quite a bit.

It also means that I'm once again finding myself interested in art and artists and the fact that while art causes nothing to happen, it gives form to the wildest and most deeply felt human emotions whether they be love, hate, grief, or a simple contentment. That is why art matters - it causes nothing to happen but rather it is a way of happening - a single snapshot taken in a single second of a hectic day of a long week of a rough month of an impossible year.

Netflix and Independent Film

As is 'I have Netflix and will also be making an effort to watch more independent film'. Because we also have a Roku.

As a general rule, I like documentaries. I also like independent and foreign horror films. Netflix has a lot of these, as well as... well just about everything else.

This is a clear and present danger to my sleep schedule.

Travel

While there's precious little I can do right now aside from research and language acquisition, I can always plan.

A little while back, I had an idea: Travel with a companion. Before you begin, I want you to have an email account and YouTube account that you can both access. Save up and buy two good-quality cameras (like Go Pro), and two journals, one for each of you. Travel as light as you can but always have these things when possible. Make videos of places you go (that's what the YouTube channel's for). Write them down if you want, or save the journals for what I like to call the 'Traveler Who Waited ' stage.

This stage starts with you both going your separate ways. But not for that long, really. Say you were both in Paris when you decided it would be a good time to do this. You both agree to meet up at a cafe you both love in, say, three months. Then you both go somewhere else. Or possibly several somewheres else. And you film and vlog and write in your journal (you can also opt to keep an online blog you can both post to if you're more inclined to do that) and when you meet up again after those three months have passed, you swap stories and catch up and from then on, the cycle will just keep going on and on until it ends.

Alternately, you can set a rough time (say, a week in May) and then film snippets of the place/text the other person clues/place something at the stop you'll be that your companion will be sure to notice (e.g. a glitter jar on a fence post) and meet up that way.

I'm not sure why but I'm sort of in love with this idea. It's like a trip around the world with your best friend/partner/whatever but there's also some time spent alone in the heart of your favourite places and the occasional Sherlock Holmes-esque detective work, ending with that sense of 'we're time-travelers but we never meet in the right order' that, for me, always comes up when you're sitting in a cafe and going through your journals together.

Anyway.

All of this comes after an... interesting talk with Mom and... I don't know, I feel a little better, strangely enough. I think I'll take that and run with it for as long as I can, seeing as I have things I would dearly love to see done.

For right now though, I might just sleep.

Bye for now, everyone~ Bye for now ^w^

So, this happened:

Yes, I realize that these are just online tests and have no real medical merit in that sense.

Normally, I wouldn't take much from these tests but given that the site I found them linked on (run by a person with autism) didn't laugh them out of the room and some form of ASD is something I've been suspecting in myself for some time now, I figure this at least paints an interesting picture.

Your neurodiverse (Aspie) score: 134 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 70 of 200
You are very likely neurodiverse (Aspie).

What really gets me here is the spiderweb graph that comes along with those scores. Yes the numbers have a pretty hard split but it's also somewhat difficult to argue much with a strong visual representation of the split. I'm almost entirely on the right side of the graph, save for some social abilities (which I utterly lacked when I was younger).

You'll have to click on this one if you want to read it but the top line (highlighted in yellow) are my scores:

Total: 146.0
Language: 6.0
Social Relatedness: 84.0
Sensory/Motor: 31.0
Circumscribed Interests: 25.0

This one was interesting because it gives you the answer choices 'Never True', 'True only when I was younger than 16', 'True now', or 'True when I was younger and true now'. While it might be a little off because I wasn't a very self-aware kid (which is probably odd in and of itself, to be fair), I think that was a good way to handle this.

From what I've read, this one was originally set up to catch 'sub-threshold autism' or to screen adults who showed signs of being on the spectrum when they were younger but those faded as they grew. This is especially interesting to me as I'd wondered about being 'sub-threshold' myself not twenty minutes before stumbling across this one. There's also the fact that we do change as we grow and it's possible that behaviors which might have strongly indicated ASD in children would have softened as the child grew.

Now, compare my scores to the average scores of neurotypical females (I wasn't given a gender-neutral option and am faab (female assigned at birth)):

Total: 82.2
Language: 5.7
Social Relatedness: 41.1
Sensory/Motor: 20.2
Circumscribed Interests: 15.0

That's, again, quite a gap.

So, yeah.

That's where that is.

I'm actually kind of glad to know that this is potentially something I could be diagnosed with. I mean when I was just thinking I was weird, it was very rough on me when I couldn't just stop being weird long enough to do things that would really help me either then or later on. If I'm just being 'weird' then I should be able to knock that off for a while when I want to, right?

Right. So the next obvious thought is that I'm not just 'weird' but that there's some other reason for my behavior other than just being quirky. Nothing wrong with being quirky, of course, but it's nice to have something concrete.

For right now, though, I think the trick is to figure out how to work around my various issues rather than just trying to force myself to act in a way this is so far off of natural to me that it's actually stressful in and of itself.

Or something.

I'll get things sorted out, is what I mean. For the immediate future though, I think I'll curl up, write about vampires and plan a story involving catboys at a Victorian music school with a friend of mine from England. Awesome.

Bye for now, everyone~ Bye for now.