Hey, just clear something up for me quick, guys -

The Shoshone do not, actually, in reality, have princesses, right? Meaning that Sacajawea could not honestly or accurately be described as a princess, right?

A quick-quick article on running barefoot

Here

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Three editorials on autism, 1-2-3, that are a month old. I don't know why I didn't see them before!

One from a mother of an autistic kid

A response from an aspie

A response to the last two

And one extra

I actually intend to go and deal with some of the comments in a bit, but god they're depressing. Click at your own risk with the comments, seriously.

I *think* you don't need to be logged in to read those, but as I can't remember my password I never log out! Comment if you can't view the entries, kk?

In California, my mother got to talking to this foster mom at the pool.

And foster mom had adopted two older boys as well, and somehow the conversation turned (amazingly quickly, I thought) to me and Asperger's. Now, I want to make this clear here, because I've yet to make this clear to my mother: She really shouldn't be outing me, as it were, without my permission. (Or at least, if she's gonna do so, she should do it in a way that it won't get back to me!) Not because it's some big secret or something (LOL, right), but because, you know, sometimes I don't want to talk about it. The butt boil of doom isn't a big secret (it largely stopped coming back a few cycles after switching to cloth pads, btw), but that doesn't mean it's what I want to talk about all the time. (I'm not comparing AS to butt boils, btw. I also don't always want to talk about fluffy kittens, and I love fluffy kittens. AS is somewhere in between boils and kittens. Ana pet a cat the other day - somehow, she'd convinced herself this was the FIRST AND ONLY TIME this has ever happened. She jumped for joy. /tangent)

But anyway, my mother brought it up and All Eyes Turned To Me. (See? THIS is why she should check with me first! All of a sudden I have to find a way to a. be social b. be polite and c. tell people why everything they thought they knew about AS and just proudly rattled off to me is wrong while also d. not speaking at my normal pace and e. trying to hit that right balance between making enough eye contact to be polite but ALSO not making SO MUCH eye contact that they assume my mother and I are lying or deluded. And I never get to finish my book. Fun.) And do you know what my mother said afterwards? She said that while I'd been busy not paying attention, when my mother brought this up out of nowhere (I went through that stage, I guess, but it was me bringing it up out of nowhere, not my mom), the other woman gasped and said "You talk about it???" Apparently one of her older boys is aspie, but they just... don't talk about it. Ever. And judging from her reaction it sounds more like a shame thing than just a privacy thing.

Now that's sad. I just can't imagine that, and I really feel for them. Which is part of why I don't mind talking about AS and spectrummy issues and all that - you can't make it normal if you keep acting like it's some deep dark secret.

(I just wish my mother would learn to, you know, ask me or give me fair warning or leave me out of these conversations entirely or something.)