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Second day of the fabled "arctic blast," something that sounds like mouthwash, but feels...entirely different. Bus services have been suspended, so I've kept Cal at home; we're waiting to hear whether or not the first session of his new ABA social skills group at Surrey Place this afternoon is actually going ahead, or what. In the meantime, there's lots of jumping and yell-singing, lots of flipping back and forth between his current two favourite tracks ("New Soul," by Yael Naim and "Shut Up And Let Me Go," by the Ting Tings), while I sit in front of my computer trying to figure out what I need to do for the next little while. Stuff on the roster includes:
--Finally update my problog, especially since We Will All Go Down Together keeps popping up on people's lists of stuff they're looking forward to this year.
--Keep going on the short story that's due by the 20th, which is already spined out and up over 1,500 words.
--Read and blurb a book for a friend.
--Set up an appointment with the same realtor who found us our current condo, so we can discuss moving by the end of this year, plus the various repairs and alterations we'll have to do around the condo to get it into saleable shape.
--Keep going on Experimental Film, revised Chapter One.
Other than that, I've mostly been mainlining Elementary Season One on DVD, having been somewhat amazed by how much I've enjoyed Season Two, thus far. Jonny Lee Miller's bitchface vulnerability is something wonderful to behold, and yes, I find I really do like it better than the BBC Sherlock, for most of the same reasons everybody else has been citing: better range of characters, recognition of what it takes to make the story genuinely contemporary, a Watson who's entirely capable of living her own life apart from Sherlock (neither a pet nor a cheering section, but a real partner), plus no inherent implication that the state of being a "sociopath" is either easy or laudable. I also see more than a touch of the neuroatypical in Sherlock's characterization, though I guess I'd be likely to; I really enjoy the recurrent thing of him mimicking something Joan's previously said to him back to her, apparently because he wants to make an emotional point but can't quite string the right words together himself, so he uses hers instead. It's like a perfect conflation of Cal and me.
Speaking of which, I was interested to stumble across this article (http://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/2012/11/17/the_autism_project_mothers_with_asd_ask_why_scientists_are_missing_girls.html), which talks about under-diagnosis of girls on the spectrum, and how that can lead to mothers and children being diagnosed at the same time. Again, a lot of it sounds very familiar to me, though Cal and I share the same lack of interest in science and mathematics; our obsessions are "cultural," creative, artistic, which can look more "normal," from the outside. When I pointed it out to Steve, he was quick to say he thought maybe the spectrum was being extended so far that any sort of behaviour which wasn't perfectly part of the social standard was in danger of being "pathologized," but I think that's because he isn't used to seeing Asperger's (where both our traits usually fit) as being something which actually subtly intersects with Cal's brand of autism, rather than being its complete opposite.
For myself, I only know that a lt of what these women say sounds both familiar and right, and that my own mounting recent problems with anxiety, depression and rage may very well come out of the same fears and frustrations Cal wrestles with every day. I find that useful, as an observation. If Steve doesn't, he doesn't--I can't make him do anything, no matter how hard Mom tries to convince me otherwise.
--Finally update my problog, especially since We Will All Go Down Together keeps popping up on people's lists of stuff they're looking forward to this year.
--Keep going on the short story that's due by the 20th, which is already spined out and up over 1,500 words.
--Read and blurb a book for a friend.
--Set up an appointment with the same realtor who found us our current condo, so we can discuss moving by the end of this year, plus the various repairs and alterations we'll have to do around the condo to get it into saleable shape.
--Keep going on Experimental Film, revised Chapter One.
Other than that, I've mostly been mainlining Elementary Season One on DVD, having been somewhat amazed by how much I've enjoyed Season Two, thus far. Jonny Lee Miller's bitchface vulnerability is something wonderful to behold, and yes, I find I really do like it better than the BBC Sherlock, for most of the same reasons everybody else has been citing: better range of characters, recognition of what it takes to make the story genuinely contemporary, a Watson who's entirely capable of living her own life apart from Sherlock (neither a pet nor a cheering section, but a real partner), plus no inherent implication that the state of being a "sociopath" is either easy or laudable. I also see more than a touch of the neuroatypical in Sherlock's characterization, though I guess I'd be likely to; I really enjoy the recurrent thing of him mimicking something Joan's previously said to him back to her, apparently because he wants to make an emotional point but can't quite string the right words together himself, so he uses hers instead. It's like a perfect conflation of Cal and me.
Speaking of which, I was interested to stumble across this article (http://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/2012/11/17/the_autism_project_mothers_with_asd_ask_why_scientists_are_missing_girls.html), which talks about under-diagnosis of girls on the spectrum, and how that can lead to mothers and children being diagnosed at the same time. Again, a lot of it sounds very familiar to me, though Cal and I share the same lack of interest in science and mathematics; our obsessions are "cultural," creative, artistic, which can look more "normal," from the outside. When I pointed it out to Steve, he was quick to say he thought maybe the spectrum was being extended so far that any sort of behaviour which wasn't perfectly part of the social standard was in danger of being "pathologized," but I think that's because he isn't used to seeing Asperger's (where both our traits usually fit) as being something which actually subtly intersects with Cal's brand of autism, rather than being its complete opposite.
For myself, I only know that a lt of what these women say sounds both familiar and right, and that my own mounting recent problems with anxiety, depression and rage may very well come out of the same fears and frustrations Cal wrestles with every day. I find that useful, as an observation. If Steve doesn't, he doesn't--I can't make him do anything, no matter how hard Mom tries to convince me otherwise.
