The Conference..Part 1...traveling, social gatherings

Heres the setting: I attended my very first "conference", 2 1/2 day event, away from home with a friend of mine. It was a START, autism conference. I had never left home without my family before.
So my friend works for the School District and she and about 12 other people from her department, went down to Lansing for this conference and somehow, I was invited and decided to attend. I really had not a clue in the world as to what I was getting into, but I trusted my friend.
It was a three hour drive down and there were four of us in the car. Yup,I was surrounded by neuro-typicals and it was an interesting ride.
First observation...they (NTS) talk a whole lot almost non-stop with the heaviest conversing going on the first half of the trip and it seemed to diminish the closer we got to our destination. The vast majority of chatter is spent talking about either themselves or someone that they mutually know. Oh, they call this social interaction and such. So I knew one person well, another well enough and the third, the wild card, not at all. As a result, I really wasn't comfortable joining in so I played the absent observer, tuned out and plugged in to my music.
Second observation...they talk a whole lot about fluff, nothing, things of minimal to no importance, in this aspie head of mine, which is just fine, just not my cup of tea. Go figure.
Riding down and in the recesses of my own mind, my thoughts were as follows: "OH MY GOD, what the hell have I gotten myself into? Am I going to really, really regret this? WTF was I thinking that I had the capabilities to do this? What possible good could come of this?" and things along those lines :) I was pretty sure that I had made a most stupid and devestating decision and that there was no way out. Seriously, it was a lot of dread, subdued panic.
We arrive at our destination and it looked exactly like the photos I had checked out on the internet..except for two things. One, a revolving glass door which caused a momentary...okay, many moments of distress as it was unexpected, new, unusual and I wasn't sure there was another entrance except through it. It stopped me dead in my tracks. Had I not been amongst others, I surely would have stood there quite awhile. Okay, there were a couple of other doors so I was good.
Then it was registration at the big desk which gave me opportunity to check out the lobby to some extent..taking it all in.
Room time and we walked toward the elevator. OMG, it was a glass elevator. I looked around and even asked if there was another way up..nope. Ok, so I gingerly step in, face the door and proceed to curse and mutter uncontrollably until we get allll the way to the...wait for it...second floor. Dang, that was one long ride. i wasn't sure how I was going to manage that dang elevator for the next few days.
Stepping off the elevator and Yikes, an open air hallway where by there was a wall a few feet tall on each side and that was it, a clear view to the lobby...no safety here. I made sure to walk directly in the middle lest I fall off.
The room, the other huge unpredictable factor..was the room going to be safe, secure and without dangerous flaws or major discomforts. The first trial, walking in..it smelled okay, nothing nefarious in the air. Okay, the second test, can I sit on the bed or is it smelly, uncomfortable and filled with bad memories and energies? Yup, its good. Okay, how is the bleach factor? Most hotels wash their bedding with bleach and oft times they overdue it to the point where it is nothing but a thick, sickly stench. Okay, it doesn't reek....I'm good.
Then my roommates, two of those, start putting their clothes in those dresser drawers which I always find very odd. My clothes stay in my suitcase. The dressers don't belong to me, are used by many different people and somehow, other than one vacation where we stayed at one place for a solid week, I don't do that. It doesn't seem right. In a sense, it would be like giving my clothes away, they wouldn't be fully mine anymore and possession is 9/10ths of the law and i don't give away my clothing or share it in a communal area. I kept my clothes to myself. I have no problem using the closet to hang things, which may or may not make sense. Maybe its the amount of touching that my clothes do..a surface area thing...like, in a dresser, my clothes would be touching the drawer material whilst hanging something up, my clothes touch nothing because they are on the hanger. Not sure.

Acheiria....One Very Proud and Bold Moment...Coming Out

Here is a copy of a newspaper article that I instigated. I called up the paper and asked them if they would be interested in doing a story..and they were. It was probably the bravest thing I had ever done in my life until that point. Very risky, but well worth it..very positive :)
May 23, 2004
Looking Beyond The Surface

Record-Eagle/Douglas Tesner
Amy Murphy holds her son, 6-month-old Sebastian, in the living room of her Manistee home. Sebastian was born without his left hand and his mom has started a newsletter for families with children who are born without limbs.


Mom of child born without hand works to dispel myths
By TOM CARR
Record-Eagle staff writer

MANISTEE — Six-month-old Sebastian Murphy’s wide, blue eyes scan the stranger in his living room. He yawns and rubs his eyes with the blunt end of his left arm.
Seb, as his family calls him, probably doesn’t know he’s supposed to have a hand there, mother Amy Murphy said.

“It’s always harder on the parents than it is on the kid,” she said.

Seb represents the one of every 2,400 births in which a child is born with what is sometimes referred to as a limb difference, said Collette Staal, manager of Mary Free Bed Hospital’s Center for Limb Differences in Grand Rapids.

In most cases, the cause is not known, Staal said. In other cases, genetics may have played a part, or extremities may have been wrapped in utero by the umbilical cord or fibrous amniotic bands.

Amy wants people to look beyond what’s not there and see the bouncy baby boy who’s on the verge of learning to smile.

“Most people do a second glance,” she said. “People are curious. I don’t have a problem with that.


Record-Eagle/Douglas Tesner
Sebastian Murphy
“But when I took him to the mall, people in their late teens and 20s would stop and stare and point,” she said. “I thought that was rude.”

Amy herself had to get used to it when she first found out that Seb would be born without the hand.

She learned from an ultrasound about 20 weeks into the pregnancy.

“I didn’t know what his future held,” she said. “You grieve the loss of the perfect child you have in your mind.”

Her other son Elliott, 11, who had wanted a brother for years, reacted differently.

“He was sad for a moment, but then he said, ‘If anyone teases him, they’ll have to deal with me,’¡” she said.

Amy also took steps to prepare before Seb’s birth.

She had a lot of questions she needed answered:

“Is he going to make friends?”

“Is he going to be teased?”

“Is he going to be able to get a girlfriend?”

She looked for information on the Internet regarding children with limb differences or “congenital amputees.”

She contacted the center in Grand Rapids.

She read “Nothing to Prove,” a book by former major league pitcher Jim Abbott, who was born without a right hand; and “For the Love of Jody: Insight for Parents of Children with Limb Differences,” by Tamara Reyes-Muralles.

And she talked to the mother of a girl who has extra fingers on her hand.

“I asked, ‘Would I be able to accept him?’¡” she said. “She reassured me that as long as I love him, it’ll be all right.”

Yet none of that really prepared her for her own reaction once Seb was born.

“I still expected to see a perfect baby,” she said.

She had to “gradually get used to” it before taking him out in public, she added.

“The first couple of months were very hard,” she said.

Eventually, she started taking him places and has been impressed with how children respond he goes with her to get Elliott from school.

“I love the questions from kids, because they’re all well-meaning,” she said. “They’ll say, ‘What happened?’ or ‘Is he missing anything else?’ or ‘Will it grow back?’

“It’s not something to deny and overlook,” she said.

Amy doesn’t know what Seb will do when it’s time for him to start crawling, though she’s not worried. She figures he’ll naturally find ways to compensate. She also wants to make sure he never looks at it as a limitation.

“He’ll be able to do 98 percent of what other kids do,” she said.

Amy has also started a newsletter for parents of children with limb differences.

“I’m only a mother trying to do what’s best for her little boy,” she said.

For more information on limb differences, go to: www.limbdifferences.org; www.amp-info.net; or www.ontheotherhand.org.

Limb Differences and Staring

As my regular readers know, my youngest son was born minus a left hand, acheiria in medical terms.Part of our daily life is dealing with the occasional stares. At seven years of age, we have been through this for awhile and to a great extent, it is pretty mundane and routine. Its healthy for kids to inquire and ask and we actually welcome it. There questions are nothng but honest and curious..its a good thing.
Kids and adults frequently have that "curiosity" stare or the gazing at the unknown, unusual and different and I get that. It is human nature to look at that which perplexes and is out of sync with our norms. I fully understand and don't think twice about that.
Then there are the problem people...those adults that for some reason or another are not satisfied with a passing glance. Those who are either rude, misguided or just plain moronic who think that it is perfectly acceptable to stare at my boy, unrelentingly.
I have used the strategy of simply giving them one, good stare back and that usually gets my point across. Every now and then...and today was one of Those days, I get someone who completely ignores my stare back not once, not twice and not even, Not Even Three times...these people I will disrespectfully term "moronically rude people" or MRP for short. I tried finding words so the acronym would be ASS, but it wouldn't work.
So these MRP's, I try and give the benefit of a doubt. Maybe they know someone who also has a limb difference. Maybe they are engineers or innovators who are trying to figure out how he uses his palm to achieve certain things, maybe they have a mental disorder, stuff like that.
The stare back usually works so I was quite frustrated and at a loss when it did not. Note to self-work on "angry eyes" and eyes that say "you are being very rude". Plus, the situation, at a chapel for a friends funeral, called for some respectful protocol. The location stymied me even more in that it was irreverent and it limited my ability to diffuse it.
I was not free to walk up to her and say "Hi, can I help you?" which can also disarm and bring ones awareness to their own actions.
Anyway, on to the part that got me railed and rankled and it simply burns my butt...at the end of the service, just before everyone was to get up and leave...she turns to her husband sitting next to her and she had a number of words with him. Judging by his sudden and consistent looking in our direction, it was painfully clear that this wench was telling her husband all about it so he could get a looksie before we left.
Now, her husband, fully understood my stare back and kept averting his eyes...see that was acceptable and the usual response. And it really pisses me off when someone is so amused that they feel they must share the ...be...nice...unusual sight. Really, is it that fucking important that you must share that which you so stared at with someone else and call their attention to it.
So, yeah, this set me off. I mean, she was sitting like, 5 feet away from him in direct view...She wasn't even trying to be covert. And little guy was feverishly playing a little video game and I was concerned that if he looked up and saw this..it would hurt his feelings. Really? Can people really be that rude at times? At a chapel? At a funeral? In plain view? Man, wisdom does Not automatically come with age.
For my part, I did all that I could, but I obviously need some more strategies. Seriously, I will practice making angry eyes and try and get a bit more emotion to my stareback cause it failed to work this time.
And after wars, as everyone left....should I have said something? Had it not been a funeral, I may have seriously contemplated it, but for the sanctity of the event and for the respect for my friends family, it was not an option...but I am entitled to spout and sputter about a stupid ass, moronic, extremely rude being who so callously and selfishly infringed upon my right to be out in public and accosted.
The vast majority of people are considerate but every now and then one idiot has to show...such is life. No biggie...lesson learned..new strategies in the works...tomorrow is another day

Having Aspergers..trying to figure it all out

Now that the endless replaying of the conversations from my three day enterprise have been somewhat dissipated by writing about them and getting them out of my head...things are a bit clearer.
I think I mindlessly or unconsciously play things over and over to understand and comprehend, figure out and pick out what is important and what needs to be remembered and partly, because sometimes they downright amuse me especially new and intriguing stuff.
So I wrote earlier in the day, did some mandatory outing and took a heavy-duty nap. Upon awakening, the conversation tapes had stopped and my latest song/ mantra could finally be heard clearly.
Wow, this past week...hmmm..I can see that it can easily be weeks if not months, before I partition, research and disseminate all the info I learned in a sparse three day event....I kid thee not.
I never felt overwhelmed at the event and I certainly do not now...I just see so very much.
The first and oft most challenging part about writing about Aspergers is figuring out what makes me different from NTS. And if you live within your own walls, if you venture outside of your own home maybe once or twice a day, sometimes...if you get together with a group of people for a social function, funeral, wedding, meeting, get together less than once every six months...One is a serious isolationist and it is really hard to see outside ones own skin.
I have found that words mean one thing to me, usually the literal, dictionary version, yet, these same identical words in the NT world, have ten different degrees of meaning. Thus when I say I lived alone, I mean truly A LONE....but others didn't get that...most people have independent and then group generalizations of a word..and its usually quite different than mine.
I'll have to slowly get into the emotional content that has been recently revealed, as some of it seems rather volcanic in nature.
The biggest and most prevalent emotion being one of anger, frustration and resentment. I am downright pissed off that I have been using all the right words in trying to express myself and no one was able to comprehend them. I have felt like such a fuck-up and an awesome village idiot for naught. More on that later.
And yes, I have a sense of humor and yes, I can lie and yes, I have great depth of caring and empathy and all those other pissy little, stupid-ass aspergian myths and generalizations that are paraded around as the only way to tell an aspie from a hole in the ground.
Okay...down boy, down, and I have decided to move off my little island and onto the mainland. Granted I actually do carry a ten foot stick that looks more like one of those lances carried by the knights in medieval times and it is pretty with its white color and red winding stripe and it is retractable and flexible but I do carry it because this is a new and wary place to be. Currently, I am pacing the perimeter watching for unfriendlies and establishing my new boundaries.
There is tons more stuff on the way as energy and time permit....take care
(Holy Shit, Batman, I found a jousting lance exactly as I pictured it...its those little things in life that delight me so)

They Missed Me...Being Away From Home

I just returned from my very first "adventure" of leaving home without/ sans me familia. That would be about 18 years or so.
There was an autism conference, a couple of hundred miles away, and for some serendipitous reason, I found myself invited. I entertained this idea and it really would never have gotten more than a passing, quickly dispersed idle thought except there were a number of variables that allowed me to consider and dwell on this.
A) I was quite familiar and comfortable with the peoples that I would be traveling and rooming with. I trust so very few peoples but these two..well, I actually fully and completely trust. Did I mention that they are autism experts? So, yeah, they get me and I don't have to implement the plethora of stressful strategies and try and pull off looking NT. Ok, thats a huge plus.
B) The subject matter was quite intriguing. Having scoured the internet and various sites and books, I thought that there might be a few things that I did not know...things that had the potential to enlighten me..so, thats good, as well, as I am forever on the enlightenment quest.
C) Curiosity..I had never been to a conference and was quite curious as to what that whole thingy was about. Yes, people had relayed the particulars but I fail to fully understand..hmmm, most things, unless I personally experience them, first-hand.
D) I needed an adventure..something that would take me out of this rut of perpetual thinking about the ..somewhat sad and self-pitious thinking given my current state of surreal reality. I rarely travel and hadn't been more than one hour out of town in over 8 months. One odd thing that this alien with agoraphobic, topographic agnosia has is sporadic, intense longings to see and experience different sights, places and brand new experiences.
So, more on the conference later.
Lots of new and unique features for this Aspie...I was never afraid..I always felt perfectly safe. I did not crave and long to be home. I knew that I would get home safely without any question or worry. The house would still be standing and everyone and everything I loved and liked would still be there.
The toughest part was dealing with the preanticipatory anxiety...the preparation, the ride down, the first "greeting" of the room and finding out that it smelled fine, wasn't poisonous(long story, previous bad experience). And the heater and airconditoner unit actually worked appropriate so I could easily maintain a comfort level there. The water Did smell like sulfuric sewer water so I patted myself on the back for doing my strange ritual of bringing my own palatable, home-grown drinking water. It was actually a necessity.
Anyway, I have to somehow, get back on this singular topic...So...
When I returned home, I guess I never really thought about what to expect in the way of greetings or feelings of Partner and Younglink at my return. remember, Younglink had never been away from me for almost three days and the same goes for Partner. So, I had no real lines of thought regarding this..I just walked in the door and experienced all this new stuff.
First off, it was wonderful to see Partner and I got a huge, warm welcome home hug. It surprised me in how good and comforting that felt. She actually missed me. And the thing that struck me the most, throughout the evening as she asked about my itinerary, was that...she was genuinely deeply concerned, in my absence, with whether or not I was doing okay. I rarely see her worried or concerned that deeply and I was very much surprised and touched that she had that much feeling and emotion. Pretty damn cool.
Younglink...now that was also quite a surprise. His voice was lowered, respectful, almost like he thought I was mad at him and that is why I left. He was very affectionate, very, overly polite and soft-spoken and from the moment I sat down he was glued to my lap and actively engaging me in conversations of a reassuring nature. Yeah, his voice...so very, very different, almost reverent with a slight concern of "do you still love me?" hinting around the edges. I felt bad that the thought of buying him a gift on the trip never once entered my very absorbed mind but luckily, I had chocolate and another little noisemaker party favor from the conference to give him. Yeah, I had no clue and could kick myself for that one...live and learn.
The dog, Shadow, omg, did he miss me and put on this huge happy dance, come pet me and love me because I missed you and have been seriously neglected kindof thing. Kato, the cat..technically my cat because I took his sorry little pleading ass in, also greeted me.
So, yeah, coming home, a brand new experience, was really very cool! I love my family!

Going to the Grocery Store...Sensory Overload

Little things are big things

If i have been in the house for a few days, I have noticed that I am more aware of sights and sounds once i venture out again.
Case in point..I went to the grocery store today, after being home ill all week. My first steps into the store was an assault of the senses...mostly hearing. I could hear at least three different refrigerator units, motors whirring and twirling each with an individual sound. Two can and plastic bottle machines were in use.There were the three checkouts with people, clerks, baggers, muffled multiple conversations.
People walking in all directions..some towards me, others away or off to the side. Its a matter of maneuvering and figuring out the easiest and sometimes, quickest path to my destination.
The lights..lots of bright light with the produce section being illuminated by some horrendous type of lighting that causes me to hurry past, slightly closing my eyes from the glare.
There are only two grocery stores in my town and both seem to have identical produce lighting.
Some days the smells bother me but this day, I am still pretty stuffy so that is one thing I don't end up thinking about.
Oh, and I have little tolerance for those people that offer free samples of this crap or that...ewww, I avoid them like the plague, with their false smiles and small vials of new and improved swill. They make me very uneasy, maybe its because they have no problem invading my personal space or maybe its because they are one of those unexpected, unanticipated factors that do nothing but irritate and annoy.
More often than not, the Grocstore is the place that one if mostly likely to find me talking to myself. With my senses all atwitter, it is hard for me to find my own thoughts. I have my list in hand but often find myself mumbling slightly aloud as i read of the items and try and locate them. I am aware that I am doing this and modify it whenever possible but it is quite a challenge. There is simply too much going on around me and focus is often lost. That is probably one reason I enjoy going to the store with someone else, usually one of my boys. It looks like I am talking to them.
I try and make my list as complete as possible so I don't have to guess or try and figure out if we need this or that. Frequently, if I remember something not on the list, I go from one end of the store to the other, more than once.
At times, I will ignore an aisle that i need something in, if too many people are present or if it is congested. I simply move on and come back to it later.
I saw the coolest sight there today...a young man with ear muffs on to cut down on the noise. I can only guess he was autistic and I, like, got it! Great idea.

I have had days where I have need to go to the store, driven into the parking lot, saw way too many cars and just left because some days it is too challenging to deal. It happens..no biggie. Or I have modified my list to just the barest of essentials and gone from there.
Its all a matter of adjustment, adapting and finding out what works and being okay with that.
Thus is the life of an Aspie :)

Gluten-Free and Aspergers

Well, it has taken me about a month, but I have officially been gluten-free for at least a couple of weeks now. It was...hmm, quite a process to figure it all out. I kept having to look things up on the internet and talk to others who have experienced this phenomenon, but, the kinks have been worked out.
I have lost 15 pounds in the process, as one big food category that went out the window was snacks and most desserts. I have found a glorious chocolate chip cookie mix and the old, plain corn chips that are my new snack choices.
I probably miss my chicken pot pies the most.
Anyway, breakfast consists of my very traditional peanut butter toast on GF bread. Its a horse of a different color, to be sure, but it works. At $5 a small, frozen loaf it is a more expensive breakfast but it seems, all the GF specialty made foods do cost quite a bit more.
I continue to work to find the foods that are naturally GF like rice, corn, fruits and veggies, and incorporate those into my daily routine.
I decided against going the full casein-free due to the hardship. While I did switch over to the Rice Milk, I am none too pleased with the taste. Next, I will check out the almond milk as I like almonds just fine. I have a new cereal that is my night-time snack...Rice Chex and those taste pretty good. I like my cheese and chips and cheese has been a fun snack food and sometimes a meal when I cannot find anything else. So, I haven't been able to let go of my cheese fetish quite yet but I have cut way back.
Likewise, I continue my activia yogurt, just because it really does keep my digestive system working in a smooth manner.
I eat a lot of chicken, hamburger and salmon. Salmon, now a days comes like tuna, in cans or ready-to-eat pouches. So I substitute the salmon for tuna in sandwiches and it has become a new staple.
Gone are any type of cakes, cookies or pastries. No more cream of mush soup or the tomato as well.
I have learned to ask for a hamburger minus the bun at fast food places. Most of the time, the clerks don't seem too surprised and the burger comes ready-to-go in its own little plastic container. I have taken to eating french fries now, where I didn't before. They help with that feeling of being full.
One of my funner finds has been the GF french fries, especially the Ore Ida Waffle Fries...OMG, the past week I have had them for lunch and dinner. Man, do they taste good!!!
I really have stopped cooking for the family..well, family meals anyway, I still make sure little guy gets regular meals, just not what I am eating sometimes. What I eat seems to be rather unappealing and bland for the rest of the family, so we make do.
I'm not exactly sure what my goal is here. I had heard that GF helps with autism, that those on the spectrum frequently have gluten-allergies, so I am just watching, observing and seeing if this makes me feel any better. I'll keep it up for quite awhile and see how it goes.
I definitely feel "lighter" these days as my pants are starting to fall down and things hang on me just a bit.
It is a long, sometimes frustrating process to change around my personal diet but I am willing to try it...anything to be healthier is okay by me.

Emotions, Jealousy, Acceptance..Remnants of the Day

Its been an odd day...one of those very rare occasions where I am glad that I had a fever and the little guy was home sick, as well. I didn't have to deal. Some days..it is better to opt out.
Interesting how I can see illness in a somewhat positive light...having value and worth. It allowed me to stay away, hide and continue to find some semblance of emotional stability...because, honey, right now,I ain't got that.
Off and on, throughout the day, for no overt or conscious reason, I found myself leaking, seeping, tearing up, call it what you will. That in and of itself is a rather unusual symptom for me. I am attributing it to overflow from yesterdays drama...remnants of the strong, unexpected and turbid feelings that suddenly and with great fanfare poured forth at court.
It was a good day to sit in a darkened room, shades drawn and play video games with the little man. Definitely not a day to be out in the mainstream and exposed to an unexpected and somewhat chaotic outer world.
I think that I used to be quite jealous of the neuro-typicals and how they always seemed so composed, put together and in charge of their emotions. They, those Nt's, appear so peaceful, orderly and downright happy. Yeah, growing up, I spent a ton of time being insanely jealous but I've outgrown that. I actually enjoy observing these other worlds (as if each person lived in their own little world as I do) and checking out how they mange and navigate, hoping to learn something, maybe. whatever. I like my own little world, because quite frankly, its all I've got. Why waste my breath praying for something that is beyond my reach? Why not just accept that this is where it is at and go from there?
Hating, resenting, and being embarrassed because of what one is..is a huge waste of energy and time. This is who I am and its good enough for me.
So, no, I don't dream of suddenly becoming NT and moving into that domain. Who knows, maybe some are jealous of my fabulous ability to escape reality at the drop of a hat? hahahahahah...just had to get that one off my chest. It could happen.

Emotions and the aspie...oh my...think powder kegs of varying sizes and sticks of dynamite strewn haphazardly throughout a very large room. It pretty much sums it up. For some reason, well, for a couple good reasons..and they know who they are...I'm no longer embarrassed or ashamed of my emotional displays. I control and keep in check what I can and when I can't..well, I can't. It is a challenge to be sure. Emotions don't make me appear weak or subhuman..they just make me..well, me. I've grown weary of making excuses for my actions...I'm done wearing shame or hiding because I am reacting differently. Damn, can't I just be who I am and leave it at that?
Acceptance comes in two forms...Self-acceptance and, for lack of a better term, worldly acceptance, and one needs..really needs to have a firm grasp of both. I feel, overall, that anyone with Aspergers is going to have quite a challenge managing the first and definitely the latter, but it is doable.

In my humble opinion, Aspies need to know how to escape as it is a form of self-preservation. It's not a negative thing by any means, just a coping skill. The Aspie mind is a hideously wondrous place.

I don't know..I've had this very long string of illnesses for a couple months now. I'd like to find a positive to it. Maybe its just so I can recoup and recover. I do want to get..stable enough to get back out there and it will happen. I just need some down time right now. Its entirely possible that seven very emotional months can reek havoc on an immune system...ya think? And I don't know when it will ever abate..calm down and return to anything resembling my normal.
Everyone has ups and downs and various challenges. Its just when mine meander into the emotional realm, well, it seems to take a bit to fully recover. So be it.

Odd Aspergers Trait...Laundry, Sensation

As I was doing laundry today...yeah, it can happen...I was reminded of one of the most odd, unusual traits that both my son and I share. I have never seen it written about anywhere.
I am unable to tell if the warm clothes, directly from the dryer, are actually dry. If I am pulling clothes out, I cannot distinguish if they are still wet or completely dry with my fingertips and hands. Usually, I just wait until everything cools down and they I can get a grasp on it.
One of the techniques that I learned to employ was to take an article out of the dryer and hold it to my face or cheek. For some reason, that will usually work.
I don't know how many times I had to demonstrate to Eldest how to do this as it is a rather strange way of doing laundry. I also distinctly remember how...comforting it was, to me, to see that he shared this characteristic as I thought that there was just something seriously wrong with me, in that, I could not perform this simple daily chore.
I continue to remember the look on his face...the puzzled, unsettled look..because he had to ask for help and wasn't at all comfortable to admit that he also, was very challenged.
I am only guessing that the warmth of the clothing somehow overwhelms our fingertips and all their neurotic :)nerve sensors and causes everything to feel the same. Dozens and dozens of times, throughout the years, I find clothing that I thought was completely dry hanging in the closet, only to locate a cool, damp spot when I went to put it on.
The face test...that what I call it. That is how this Aspie can get the laundry done appropriately. This is one of those very weird, odd, little things that I have learned to adapt to.

The Two Seasons of Northern Michigan

Being this close to the 45th parallel,the seasons are rather unique. We basically have two..one from October till March which is winter and the other is April till September and that would be spring.
Sure, some would say that the few weeks in between, say around September to October, when the sky turns dusky and leaves are turning and trembling and cascading might be called fall, to me, it is all too brief to be called anything other then a prelude to winter.
The spring season can rarely be called summer, as the temps may or may not hit the mid 80's for a few weeks.
Every year, it seems the winters get longer and colder...especially this year.
Anyway, once again, this spring, I went out and procured some forsythia branches to force in to bloom early...I need to see and feel the spring, the warmth, the hope of beauty and rebirth...Enjoy

Thunder Snow in Northern michigan April 3, 2011