The Rebel

I have been promising to write stuff about neurodiversity for a long time. There’s so much to write. I even considered creating an entire Medium channel dedicated to the topic. But the irony is, that one notable aspect of my particular flavour of neurospiciness is to start things, get distracted by other things, and neglect the first thing. This is why I have 7 blogs. And I’ve lost count of how many FB pages I run, well….started. So, that’s on hold for now. But I have gathered my thoughts (it’s like herding cats really) enough to put THIS one together.

I write mostly in the middle of the night. Which is to say, in my head. In my bed. Not at a keyboard. Sometimes I remember enough if these perfect essays to write them down the next day, but usually I have moved on! But one thought has been nagging at me for so long, there’s not a chance of me forgetting it. Then yesterday I had a related thought. So, in a way, his blog post wrote itself. But first……some background for those who don’t know me or my family.

We are a neurodiverse family. I think it’s fairly conclusive now that this stuff is usually hereditary (I’ll tell you about the exceptions another time). Add to that, neurodiverse people are frequently attracted to each other (like magnets). So, neurodiverse families are a thing. But it’s only in quite recent times that “mild” neurodiversity has been recognized. Leading to many people self-diagnosing at an advanced age, often after a child gets a proper diagnosis. It’s an aha! moment in the family. And like the joke about Uncle Fred who insists there was none of this autism in his day, as he wears the same shirt every day, can’t have his food touching, and is rude to everyone, when we suddenly see it in others in the lineage a lot of things make sense.

For us, it was a slow process. Our 5th child was diagnosed with autism at the age of 6. We knew he was weird, but everybody in our family is weird, so we just accepted him as he was. The school saw it differently. The letter I got was “Get this child a diagnosis or don’t send him back in September”. Or words to that effect. So we got him a diagnosis, and also a remark in a letter to the school from the pediatric psychologist that in layman’s terms was “DEAL WITH IT”, and carried on. Gradually over the years schools and teacher became more capable of dealing with it, and his education was ultimately a success, with a few hiccups along the way.

My son is now 32, still lives at home, is unable to find work because of his differences, so receives disability benefits from the government, but he’s a treasure. He’s funny, smart, and the kindest person I have ever met. He’s also an expert on his own condition, and a great teacher. So when I am talking to people about autism, I don’t just speak from having him around, I quote him.

We saw in his eldest brother and father quite a few significant traits that he has. These are both men who function well and have successful careers. So we knew, perhaps sooner than many, that autism comes in all shapes and sizes. We also recognized it in my mother-in-law, and, from stories, her father, who was born in the 1880s. He was a polymath. A very successful and respected man, but quite obnoxious, and extremely eccentric. And my mother-in-law once told me “When I was a little girl they thought there was something wrong with me, because I never smiled.” “Wrong” is not the word I would use, but in describing my mother-in-law the word “different” always feels like an understatement. She was extremely weird.

So, yes, it runs in the family.

Then my eldest daughter had two children diagnosed with ADHD. Then my younger daughter had two children diagnosed with ADHD. Coincidence?

ADHD is a distant cousin of autism. They share some traits, are opposite in others, but they both come under the term “Neurodiversity”. The big difference is that there are drugs which treat ADHD. And all 4 grandchildren were medicated and carried on just fine.

And THEN……my younger daughter’s youngest was diagnosed with autism. Not a huge shock, but it was about this time she started to see ADHD in herself. Meanwhile my eldest daughter pondered her own quirks. And studied.

And there was this moment, I’ll tell you exactly what happened…..

We were taking a walk alongside a lake while on vacation together. I remember exactly where we were at the time. She was saying that I have neurodiverse traits. And I laughed. I admitted to being a bit quirky, but happily so. But more to the point I said “I’m no more quirky than everyone else I know!”

And my far too wise for her years daughter said firmly “Mom, you surround yourself with your own kind. You always have. You think of anyone else as boring.”

I think I went quiet because the realization that she was absolutely right blindsided me. But I slowly came to realize over time that I wasn’t the normal one in the family. I was just good at dealing with my own quirks, none of which were difficult anyway, they mostly made me creative. They helped me raise quirky kids, with an open mind. And the ones that were a bit of a nuisance, I’d found ways round over the years. Plus, I had always been accepted exactly as I was by people that mattered, and anyone who didn’t like me? Well, fuck ’em.

I was an only child of a widowed mother. She doted on me and praised my idiosyncrasies. I did later however, become aware that she warned people, in advance of meeting me, that I marched to the beat of my own drum. But she was also an enabler. When I hated tea (imagine that, growing up in England) she told me it was fine to decline so long as I was polite about it. She let me wear whatever I liked and encouraged all my many and varied hobbies. For a weird child at that time, this was not typical. Children were expected to go along with social norms whether they liked it or not. All that was ever asked of me was that I wasn’t rude to people. So I wasn’t. Usually. But she always called me a rebel. I was a punk rocker, by sheer coincidence (!). A rebel. What was my cause?

So, being diagnosed by my daughter, albeit at the tender age of 61, simply gave me an explanation. Sort of. But what sort of neurodiverse am I?

You see, I had adult friends with ADHD, and I had read up on it, and I didn’t see myself there really. And I definitely didn’t seem to be autistic. So, I just settled for neurodiverse, or to be funny, neurospicy, because it’s mild. Ish.

One day I mentioned this to my eldest. I said I had realized I was a little neurodiverse. He looked me straight in the eye and said “Mother, you have rampant ADHD.” I never saw that, because I am not a fidget. And I have never suffered from racing brain. Except, I scratch a lot, and my inner voice never shuts up. Fact is, I’m just used to having a “busy” brain. I get bored so easily that I usually read or crochet while watching a TV show I’m really keen on. But an hour of TV is about my limit. I struggle with movies. In fact, the more we learn about the broad range of ADHD traits as a society, and the more I think about it and analyze myself, the more I see it.

On the other hand, I share quite a few traits with my autistic son. Only in a much more subtle way, but there’s no escaping it. We understand each other and get along as friends. He makes more sense, most of the time, than “normal” people.

It is possible to have autism AND ADHD, and those diagnosed with both struggle to the nth, for obvious reasons. The two conditions fight each other, e.g. you want routine but you can’t seem to keep to it. You need social interaction, but it exhausts you. And so on. It’s a double whammy. But if both sides of it are mild enough, you function. You’re just extra quirky.

What if we take all of these traits, simply call them “Neurodiverse Traits” and just count them? Everybody, EVERYBODY, will have one or two. It’s part of being human. But there would be a threshold number, I don’t know, maybe 25% of the list, where it would become a thing. And at 50% a problem. At 75% you would struggle to cope in society. And those numbers could be way off. Because struggle depends on your particular situation. Understanding neurodiversity is increasing quite rapidly, and I believe there will come a time when the line between ADHD and autism will blur so much they’ll stop differentiating. Because each of them already have sub-types. Remember, if you meet one neurodiverse person, you’ve met one neurodiverse person. Never compare.

Before I launch into the two real reasons for this post (good grief, are we not there yet?) I want to talk about masking. This is where a neurodiverse person actively, deliberately, selectively hides their neurodiverse traits. It is now considered quite dangerous, but for decades it was taught as being the right thing to do. Long before any understanding of neurodiversity, and sadly, even after, we were all taught to “be normal”. Behave in the prescribed manner. Follow the social norms. Don’t talk about your weird interests. Don’t be weird. Why can’t you be like everyone else? What’s wrong with you?

Now, obviously some people simply can’t do this. But those who could, did their best. Girls are usually much better at it than boys. So girls have a much harder time being understood and being diagnosed. Which is why women in their 50s, 60s, 70s are now seeking a diagnosis, and when they get it they feel an immense weight off their minds. A life of anxiety, shame, and self-doubt, and suddenly, it all make sense. It’s a beautiful thing. Men are more likely to deal with it by being angry, or abusing substances. Now that people are seeing they are not alone, self-diagnosing, and being their authentic selves, life is easier for them. It’s saving relationships.

I never hid my quirks. Maybe this is why I never suffered. My attitude was always “This is me, take it or leave it.” Friends were selected from those who were fine with me as is. When my husband and I met I was a little punk rocker in spray-on pink jeans, he took me at face value, and although I know sometimes I make even him squirm (“Mel, shh, don’t cause a scene.”) he’s never tried to change me. Wouldn’t work anyway. When I found it hard to do something, I simply did something else. I’m not good with authority (q.v. Pathological Demand Avoidance, which can also manifest in a mild form) so I became self-employed. Problem solved. I never liked dresses, so I stopped wearing them. What you see is what you get. So long as I am not causing you harm, deal with it.

Now then.

A random group on Facebook this morning asked “Women who never wear make-up, why?”

I was about to reply with my usual “Can’t be bothered”. But I gave myself time to think deeper. And while it’s quite true that I can’t be bothered, there is a bit more to it than that. Once in a blue moon, like if I attend a wedding and I’m wearing posh clothes, I will put a little on. Because I’m already “in costume” and it seems to make sense.

And my final answer was “Why should I? Men don’t.”

There’s a bit of stubbornness in there. If I’m expected to do something, and I don’t agree with the reason, I won’t do it. Mild PDA, you see? The rebel. I got into trouble at a job once for not wearing heels. I was on my feet all day, and I was never good in heels anyway, so I said no. Not happening. The general manager was called in. I said if he wore heels, so would I. It was never mentioned again. I don’t like double standards, and fuck the patriarchy.

I wore make-up as a young woman. But it wasn’t standard. I did it my way and it was punk/Goth, not too extreme actually, but not standard. I was waiting outside the school for my daughter one day and another mother had the nerve to tell me that as a respectable mother I shouldn’t wear make-up like that. I got right in her face and said “Don’t you EVER call me respectable.”

But I lost interest. I once promised to wear make-up when I hit 60, but when the time came I tried, it wasn’t easy, and I didn’t really care for the results. I can’t do eyeliner straight, and that’s the best bit. I am not ruling it out. Maybe when I hit 70…..

The point is I don’t do it because it is “expected”. I mean…by whom? Who says I should? Why?

I have asked a few people who complain about the cost and time it takes why they do it. And their reasons tend to be based on the opinion of others. Well, fuck that.

If you ENJOY make-up, oh my dear, go nuts! You have my absolute blessing, encouragement, and would you like some for Christmas? It’s not just a “you do you” thing. No, I want YOU to be happy. Whoever you are. So if make-up makes YOU happy, girl get that brush going.

But if it doesn’t make you happy, I hope you find the courage to rebel.

Because I think it’s often just a social norm. God, I hate social norms. I really fucking hate social norms.

I was told, many years ago that etiquette (social norms disguised as politeness) was created to help people. So they never had to guess what to do, they could learn it by heart, and then just follow the rules. Simple as that! Particularly true of table manners, but also of greetings, and gift-giving and receiving, and hospitality, and so on. Well, that’s a nice idea. Anything intended to make anyone’s life easier has to be a good thing, doesn’t it?

Except for many, many people it’s unpleasant. Maybe in small ways, like how I find smalltalk boring. And maybe in big ways like the crippling stress of socializing for introverts and the neurodiverse. I’m all for saying please and thank you, don’t get me wrong. Most people can manage that. But being expected to behave in ways opposite to your nature, when you were doing no harm, is just ridiculous. And that’s not taking into account that social norms vary by custom. You don’t have to go halfway round the world to experience it either. You can find differences simply between the country and city. Some social groups hug. Others shake hands. But my son-in-law’s Portuguese family kiss your cheeks three times, and you better be ready and on the right side! I was once chastised by an Italian taxi driver for not making smalltalk before asking for directions. I get it, I’ll get it right next time, but I find it daft.

Ah, and then there’s the ugly side to social norms. In many communities and cultures gossip is a social norm. I despise it, won’t do it, and will call it out on occasion. This prevents me from fitting in in certain circles. Fine. It’s nothing to admire. Then there’s racism and/or xenophobia, and other bigotry. If you find yourself the odd one out in a social setting where jokes are being made about the “other”, you may as well leave, because you’re outnumbered, and anything you say will be ignored anyway. But you are expected to laugh. Expectations like this are considered normal. The victims of the gossip or the jokes are not “us”, they are other. For now at least, this is the social norm.

I’m not buying it. There is good behaviour and there is bad behaviour and they really are universal. If you are not harming others, and in fact your intention is kindness, while looking out for your own welfare, I fail to see how anything is wrong. Civilization runs on being civil, rules are for those with an agenda.

In the end it is, as usual, a game of numbers. The majority get to say what is and isn’t normal, and they also get to say what they do to those who don’t comply. Tolerance is, in my humble opinion, the best option. Tolerance is not a goal. It’s a step towards a goal. Tolerance says “I don’t like this, but I’ll mind my own business.” Tolerance can break down easily under pressure. It’s far from perfect. But it is the best most of us can do and, most importantly, keep up.

The next step is understanding, and that’s the hard one. There are many things I don’t understand. Some, I may never understand. Some, I may have no business trying to understand. Nevertheless, I find life works best when we consider the “why” of what people do. Sometimes it allows us to forgive them, or at least continue the discussion.

I have been told by those much wiser than myself, that there are really no bad people. That all bad behaviour has an explanation, and often this is often a disorder of some kind, even if just from personal trauma. I have noticed that the intolerant see it the other way around. They consider any talk of disorder to be an excuse. The important thing here is that there is a difference between an excuse and an explanation, but many don’t seem to understand that at all. What can I do? Educate.

If you found this piece to be useful in any way, please do let me know. I often feel that I’m writing to nobody but myself, and while that helps me get things out of my brain, it gives me no clue as to whether you are interested in more, or not. I’ll probably write more anyway. It’s what I do.

Just Another Day In The West

LOOK! A blog post! OMG. Exciting innit?

It’s a stream of consciousness thing which is what I do best. But I get so tired of short snippets of thoughts on social media. My brain doesn’t work like that. I admire the succinct, the meme makers, those who get quoted. I have so many thoughts, such long pieces of stuff in my head. I love to write in full, not in bits. I still get misunderstood but I can’t help that. What I write and what you see are not the same thing. Priorities, triggers, opinion, experiences, understanding…..we are all different.

I wanted to (still want to) use my Medium account to build a following, so that I actually get readers. It would give me a jump-off for the books I write. But like most of my plans, there’s a delay. None of the books are finished. Medium remains unused. The big, over-arching reason, of course, is that I have so many fucking projects, I am always behind on all of them. If you followed me around all day you would see I am constantly busy. From the time I wake, until…..I even plan stuff in my sleep. But I jump from project to project based on whim. Whatever. Sometimes I finish things.

But there’s another thing with Medium. It is best if you have a topic. Something readers can reasonably expect. People have Medium accounts on every topic under the sun, health, education, politics, cooking, gardening, travel, etc etc etc. I am interested in, and think about, and enjoy writing about so many different things, that to be absolutely truthful, it’s easier for me to list the things I’m NOT interested in. And I could write about those if asked.

I put all of this polymath fuckery down to neurodiversity, and indeed that is something I write about. And I suppose I could use Neurodiversity as my topic, and then if I write about seashells I can use the excuse that it’s because I’m neurodiverse. But I think that’s cheating.

But here we are on a random Friday morning and I get this urge to write. What did I have in mind? Only about 40 things really, not too many. In a short while I shall be heading downstairs to get some breakfast. It will be some sourdough bread* and ham*, I’ll cut the bread with my special sourdough saw*, and get the butter out of my upside-down butter dish* that I bought while up in Kapuskasing* in northern Ontario, visiting two of my grandchildren*. Then I plan on painting* some of the resin ceramics* I made earlier in the week. Hold on*, my husband* just sent me a photo of a beautiful sunset*. Also on the schedule* today, I am organizing* my basement (again*) and doing pretty well, but I need to move a ton of stuff my daughter* left here when she moved out. She has no space for it in her home, but she can’t throw it out*. I’m also making myself* a t-shirt for the concert* I’m going to tomorrow night. I have to water my garden*, harvest some beets for pickling*, make a few phone calls* and oil the blade of my new food grinder*. Haven’t decided what to cook* for dinner tonight, but I fancy a burger, TBH.

All those asterisks refer to passions of mine, or other quirks, and that’s just a few. It’s a neurodiversity thing. What sort of neurodiversity do I have? My sort. It has no name. It’s not severe, and I love it. Yes, I think of 50 things at once. Yes, I am a little…..eccentric (you get away with that at my age far better) but I’m happy. Leave me to it. It’s all good.

Alas, all this thinking incudes the desire to explain. To be understood. Why? Very good question. Because, as I noted earlier, what I say, and what you take in, often don’t match. And I explain myself very carefully. I overdo it. But what I hate is repeating myself. Right now, across social media, a lot of people are feeling the same way. Because we have two thoughts in our heads. Just two. And we express both of them. And a proportion of our readers only see or hear one of them. This is frustrating and it’s leading to a lot of arguments. But I’m going to do it again, because you never know. And I deliberately (for once) waffled on about absolute tosh for a bit back there, to give no clues as to what was coming. You know how scammers use bad English on purpose to weed out the time-wasters? Well, same principle. If you can’t be bothered to read my waffle, you probably won’t understand the next bit. Or bother trying………

You can hold two sincere views at the same time.

1. Violence is always bad. I don’t even kill spiders, Even in self-defence you should always do the least harm to overcome. There are no exceptions to this rule.

2. Charlie Kirk was an utterly despicable human being.

I hold both of these as true.

And it’s not just him. There are a long list of utterly despicable human beings who should NOT be taken out, but I won’t cry if they are.

“You shouldn’t be killed for your beliefs.”

You shouldn’t be killed for anything. The death penalty is wrong. War is wrong. Police shooting dead a man who is running away is wrong. It’s all wrong. No, of course you shouldn’t be killed for your beliefs.

DUH.

Right now, as I write, we do not know who shot CK and the FBI seem to be saying they don’t either. (Exhibit A: the reward money offered.)

But, I’m still not convinced it wasn’t a CIA hit to start trouble up. You never know.

Anyway. Assuming it was a “normal” shooting, there are many on the right blaming the left. Which is actually quite funny when you see the list of recent atrocities in which the perpetrators were on the right. But you can argue that until the cows come home.

Still, somebody shot him. And let’s assume the shooter chose to do it, because of his beliefs. Which we all agree is wrong. Let’s start from there.

Why did he do it, knowing it is wrong?

For the exact same reason that the IRA used to kill soldiers in Northern Ireland. It is. And I’ll explain.

I briefly became friends with a young woman who was a full member of the IRA. I don’t even remember how we met, but she was a handful. We parted ways after she lied to me to get a ride into London to get an abortion. I’m not anti-abortion, but I don’t like being scammed. Anyway, that’s by the by. I asked her why she became a Provo. She said it was because as a child she had twice had her home burned down by
Protestants. She’d had family and friends killed by Protestants. She grew up angry. So would you. She was taught by family and friends that she was living in a war, and even when she studied history, learned the nuances, understood the whole picture……she was still angry. And in her teens she met young men who struck her as sincere, and they pulled her in. Was this wrong? Of course. Did the IRA commit atrocities? Of course. Did she know that? OBVIOUSLY. But she wasn’t you, or me. She couldn’t look at it dispassionately.
This was far too personal.

Now, I don’t know, I didn’t ask, and I didn’t want to know, whether she had been involved in any acts of violence. I just wanted to understand. And as we talked, I got it. I never agreed with her POV but I understood it.

The young people of Belfast felt totally powerless. Their voting made no difference. They were not allowed any form of peaceful protest. They painted murals, yes. They chanted. But anything beyond that got them arrested. Even being a “known associate” of a Provo got them arrested. Saying “he’s my fooking uncle” made no difference. Guilty by blood. They grew up with British soldiers and armoured vehicles on the street, all the time. Of course it felt like a war zone. If you kept your head down, kept to yourself, minded your own business, it made no difference. If you were Catholic you were a target. The military tried to keep them apart but……yeah.

So, they became terrorists. Nobody wakes up one morning and says “I think I’ll be a terrorist”. Because “terrorist” is a word used by those on the other side. They saw themselves as freedom fighters. Everyone does. Everyone wants to be free. Nobody is. But a few become radicalized. Why some and not others? Lots of reasons. Upbringing. Experience. Personality. Influence. Peer pressure. And more.

If you have the privilege of never having been personally affected in such a way that you are willing to become somebody’s enemy, you may never understand. But you can try. Most of us have something we are passionate about. But usually we just talk about it. Sometimes talk is not enough. Sometimes emotions get the better of us and we rant and rage. Sometimes it all gets too much.

Let’s look at the Middle East briefly. Who is to blame there? Nobody alive today. It’s all history, just as Northern Ireland is. But it’s ongoing because both sides think they are right, and both sides retaliate every single time. This is how we KNOW not only is violence bad, it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work.

But that’s logic. And when your entirely family has been killed in a rocket attack, logic is not on the table. Do they see how foolish their revenge is? No. They see it as justice. Is that wrong? Of course it is. But if you think they will stop just because some outsider who has no clue what it’s like to be in that situation tries to explain to them that violence doesn’t solve anything, you must be a special kind of stupid.

Have you ever broken up a dog fight? Did you get bitten? In the moment. In the haze of anger. In the emotional state where logic is gone, your beloved pet will turn on you.

Let’s go back to being killed for just your beliefs. You never hurt anyone. You just expressed your deepest felt opinions. You never laid a finger on anyone! “I was just speaking my mind” That is also true of many, many very bad people through history. The powerful never need to get blood on their hands. All they had to do was hint. “Will nobody rid me of this turbulent priest!” Somebody would do it for them. I could list a bunch of powerful people from recent decades who got others to do their dirty work for them, and yes, that includes Hitler. Sorry, but it does. Words cause great harm.

Words can be, actually, a form of violence. If your words merely suggest harm to others, they run a risk of it happening. There will always be those willing to carry out your thoughts into actions.

If I were a powerful person, and I was to say “I think it’s time for the Canadians to burn down the White House again!” and a bunch of people crossed the border and committed arson, who is guilty? I could say afterwards “Only joking!” If I were powerful enough I’d get away with it. But really, I am every bit as guilty as the guy who lit the match.

And. If a family member of a White House staffer who died in the blaze came after me, he would be wrong. But that would be a risk I’d have to consider. Because justice was not done. I got away with it. He has no other recourse. He’s not being logical. He is BAD. But it would be understandable.

Honestly, the more I think about it, the more we just need to try to understand. I try hard to understand where people are coming from when they say things I don’t agree with. I often fail. But I try. My usual way of dealing with it is to discuss it a little, to see if they are also trying to understand my POV. If it’s clear that they are not, I walk away. I don’t enjoy arguing with a brick wall, and I hate repeating myself. Sometimes, on some topics, we can agree to disagree.

Even when it’s personal. Sometimes I can be the bigger person, and just “consider the source”. I almost lost my mother and son to suicide, but I am old enough and wise enough to ignore the opinion that it’s the “coward’s way out” etc. But if you pressed the point. If you made it your mission to smear the names of people who attempted suicide. If you got in my face about it. If you used my family’s names to make your point. If you made it personal. We might have a problem. I’m strong, but I can be pushed too far. Yeah, you would get a rant. I’m nice until I’m not.

And that’s me. The peacenik. Not everyone has the years of experience, the analytical skills, the mental stabilty, or the resources I have to deal with your words. Some people get triggered.

Art For Art’s Sake

In a conversation about teachers, a friend told me an art teacher had put her off trying. I’m not sure if I feel anger or sadness over this, but it has inspired me to fix it. If you want to create art but feel you can’t I’m here to tell you that you can, and if enough of you are interested I shall do an entire blog/site dedicated to proving it. But for now……

Oh, art teachers! I had some good and some not-so-good art teachers, but I can’t really complain about any of them, because I was the student from HELL. I was born with a personality of pure fire, and this was encouraged by a mother who told me I was capable of anything. She took encouragement to the next level, because she had missed out on it, and she wanted me to be more confident than she was.

One of my earliest memories was of her drawing cats for me. We both loved cats, but it was just something she could do, and long before I could, she did little cartoon cats in the plain margins of books to make me laugh. When she saw that I enjoyed drawing and painting, I was showered with pencils and paints, and I was bought Winsor and Newton in Harrods one Christmas. We were absolutely NOT on that level of wealth, but she decided I was worth it.

I did some fairly good work in school, but I was told you couldn’t make a living out of art, and that was that.

Fast forward to my daughter and I teaching ourselves computer graphics when we got hold of a pirate (shut up) copy of Photoshop. She was a fabulous artist in school (her grandmother had showered her with art supplies very young too) and I can never forget the day she asked for brushes in Michaels one birthday and the look on her father’s face at the checkout when he heard the total. This is 25 years ago now and my poor husband still goes pale if you mention brushes in Michaels.

Fast forward a bit more to us creating a small business based around computer art, and although she has a real job now it has continued with me to a lesser degree, while at the same time, I decided about 5 years ago to make a serious effort to learn watercolour. Anyway. The thing is, my teacher was wrong. You can make a living from art. But that’s not what I’m here to tell you. You don’t have to monetize everything. You can do art for art’s sake.

The three things I want to tell you about are:

One: Support and encouragement. Yes, it matters. Yes, being so afraid to fail that you don’t begin is REAL, and it happens to everyone, all the time. Michaelangelo had that feeling before the first brushstroke on that effing ceiling. I know he did. Fear of failure grips every creative person regularly. I’ve heard so many musicians talk about it, dancers, you name it. I think it is what drives us to try hard, to be honest. But it’s made worse by negativity from others. That husband of mine, who has always sighed, and swallowed hard when he gets to the checkout in the art store, nevertheless hands over the money. That is part of his support. The other part is not complaining (well, not too much, bless him) when he comes home to find I’ve done nothing all day except paint. And dinner is late. And the dishes aren’t finished. Etc. He sighs, and just does it himself sometimes. That’s true support. He’s not so good on the compliments. Occasionally I’ll get a “not bad”, but he is a hard man to please. I’ll return to this, because of the individual nature of it, but my point is, in HIS way, and in the most important way (enabling) he supports me.

HOWEVER, I get oodles of support from other artists. We are a community that falls over each other to help and encourage, and you never met a nicer bunch of people than amateur artists. Well, possibly rock concert audiences, but…… different situations. In other words, don’t worry about those closest to you being your fans. It would be nice, but so long as they allow you to do art, which is to say they give you the time and space and means, you’re good to go. That matters.

Two: Not everyone is going to be a really great artist. Apart from the fact that some talent IS innate, there often simply isn’t time (trial and error is your best teacher). But, everyone can be a better artist. And everyone can do art they enjoy doing, and be pleased with the results. As much as it would be lovely to have others appreciate your work, that is secondary. If you like it, it’s great.

But let’s be honest, there is no real consensus of what a great artist is anyway. Twombly has gone down in history as a great artist. I am not afraid to state that in my opinion, Twombly was SHIT. A conman. My cat can paint better than that. Experts would laugh at me saying this, and they can bite me. I assume Twombly liked his own work. That’s all that matters.

Three: You do need some help. Being self-taught is all good, but man can you ever speed things up by learning from others. There is a slew of free help and advice available, but it’s definitely worth paying for a bit of tuition. I am a huge fan of Domestika, and I recently joined my favourite artist’s Patreon. In a matter of hours you learn tips, tricks, techniques, that you’d take years to figure out on your own. I think this is especially important as a real beginner, because some of the tools and materials need explanation. There are excellent books available. Most of the real skill comes by practice, practice, practice, but nobody expects you to just drive a car instinctively, or bake a cake, or whatever.

If the medium you choose is a bit technical (I believe watercolour is as much a science as an art) you definitely cannot be expect to “just do it”. Even children who can be the most fearless, benefit from suggestions. My granddaughter has obvious talent, but had never thought to add gold to her palette. I saw the lightbulb go on when I handed her the pan, and her very next work was exponentially better as a result, and she KNEW IT. She was so pleased with it. Teachers don’t always agree on some finer points, which is funny. But trying all their suggestions, and then rejecting the ones that don’t work for you helps you develop your own style. Rules are made to be broken, after all.

YOU CAN DO IT IF YOU WANT TO. And sometimes the best people to help get you started are those who aren’t very experienced. I consider myself a journeyman watercolour artist, and we are ready to begin helping others. Apart from anything else, we know which experts to point you to. And we give away their tips, for free 😉

Identity

I got incredibly sidetracked when I started my series on neurodivergence, and a good thing it was too, because I’ve figured something else out.

If you know what masking is…….well, briefly, it’s when a neurodivergent person pretends to be normal. Obviously, not everyone can do this. Some can’t do it at all. Some try but fail. Some cope fairly well, but stuff leaks through…..as many variations on that theme as there are variations in neurodivergence, but importantly, it is a THING. Women are often better at it than men. It breaks down with age, but there are those who fight tooth and nail. They desperately, angrily, claw-at-the-walls trying to appear to be normal.

These people, who have decided that normal is real, normal is best, normal is what THEY are, are often the most critical, difficult, cruel people we meet.

Let me remind you that there is no such thing as normal. What there are, are agreed-upon social norms. Within a culture. Within a timeframe. Some actually become law! But at the very least, they are expected. They are unwritten rules that have nothing to do with anything really beneficial. At best, they help us navigate being human. At worst, they cripple us mentally.

Consider table etiquette. We tend to make jokes about it, and thankfully it has relaxed in recent years. But it wasn’t so long ago that if you used your fish knife to spread your butter, some elderly lady would gasp in horror. My father-in-law once slapped my son’s hand for daring to place his elbow on the table. What’s it all about? The original idea was that it was helpful. You would be taught these rules while young, and you would know what to do. So, while at the dinner party, you could concentrate on the conversation. Everyone would see you as educated and refined. You would not stand out. Conformity would bring advantages.

Except it just made life more difficult for some.

All etiquette had the same idea in the beginning. To help everyone. To make you feel like you belong.

Here we are in the 21st century, with at most, two spoons on the table, and maybe an extra sharp knife for your steak. We can manage that. Until you cross the Atlantic. Americans cut everything up, then move the fork to the right hand, and eat with just that. Brits cut as they go, and eat from the fork in the left hand. There are still those new to this and there can be nudges, winks, and giggles. But we get over it. We are all sophisticated enough to allow for cultural differences.

Life in general has far more unwritten rules than tables do. And although we are (sort of) taught (most of) them when young, many are not fully explained. Some are actually quite complex and difficult. Some people really struggle with them. And some of us just reject them. We could play along, but we ask why too much, and when we don’t get a sensible answer, we do things our own way.

For neurodivergence to become a problem, you have to care that you are breaking the rules. Sadly, people go out of their way to make a big deal out of it. As that wise philosopher Jack Sparrow taught us, the problem is not the problem, it is your reaction to the problem. This applies to both sides. If I don’t follow the rules, and you scold me for it, only then does it become a problem. Or, if I am trying to follow the rules, but can’t, then it becomes a problem. Either way, the problem is not the problem.

I was in Italy once and was looking for a post office. I saw a taxi driver, and thought he’d be a good person to ask. So, I mustered up my best Italian “Ciao. Dove si trova l’ufficio postale?”. He shook his head “No signora. Buongiorno. Come stai?” I got it quickly. And it’s funny, because it’s nothing to do with cultural differences. Normal Canadians will always begin with “How are you?” before they launch into questions. But until quite recently, I would ignore that and open with a question. I have had it hammered into me that when somebody asks me how I am I must say that I’m fine, and ask how they are too. Ay ay ay. It’s polite. It’s “normal”. OK. We all know the rest of the conversation will be weird, so I will lull you into a false sense of security with all that nonsense. Sup bro?

I felt scolded. But it was kinda funny too, and I just made a mental note. Within my limitations, no problem. And I’m certain that it was originally to help you as an opener. Also, let’s not forget, for some neurospicy people, it really does help them too, as an opener. Power to them. I am more of a “Hey……..(long complex question)” type. Straight in. No prologue.

But if being scolded hurt me deeply, or if I scolded myself for getting it wrong, then it becomes a problem. And the normal people say “So, remember it then. Get it right.” Because they like conformity. Or (as I said at the beginning) they want to.

We are seeing more tolerance, and as always, there’s a backlash. Those who are sticklers for social norms are getting angry about those of us who think many of them are silly. We endanger the very fabric of (their) society. They see anarchy while we see freedom.

The greatest irony of all of this, is that typically those who want to uphold the traditions, the norms, the etiquette for etiquette’s sake, are not only conservative with a small c, but with a big one too. Hilariously, they are the ones crying freedom, while desperately trying to curtail it for anyone not like them. They are so tied up in norms, that they don’t just scold us quirky people, they’ve got it in for anyone who isn’t one of them. That’s why they are racist. To them, not being white is abnormal. How dare they not be normal! And, you see, normal simply means “like me” to them. They can’t think outside the box.

Where does this lead to? All of this? All the discovery by people that you can, if you want to, unmask? This new, scary tolerance. You can say, actually, I’m not neurotypical. I don’t care that I eat my peas with a spoon. If you don’t like it, look away. Society is changing. That’s why the MAGA hat people want it to go backwards. Back to a time when they could scold you for anything, even being born different. That’s why they want freedom for them, but not for you.

FREEDOM! But, hold on. Follow our rules.

Where is it all going to end? A slippery slope, they say. Faced with logic from us rebels they call in God. It’s all they’ve got left. A higher authority. Except we don’t care what their God says. So, now what? Well, they need power then. They must control us. That’s why it all became political.

Guess where else this applies. Gender.

Once upon a time there were strict gender rules, and roles. A woman wearing pants could actually be arrested. In some places she still can. In some places you can be executed for cross-dressing. In 2024. Oh yeah, we’ve come so far.

Within my lifetime it was illegal to be homosexual in the west. Seems silly now, but it was. But enough people said “No, we don’t care!” and only the backwards conservatives still bother with that. Especially the politicians secretly ashamed of their own sexuality, screaming anti-gay hatred, and then getting caught in the stationery cupboard with Steve. What is that called when you pretend to hate what you are so much that you vilify others………..”Normal” people masking, and scolding the neurodivergent………Hitler was part-Jewish you know……….we can say self-loathing, but that’s not enough, is it?

What goes on in the brain of a person who has decided they are the normal one and anyone other is wrong/bad/dangerous? It must be a mess in there. It must require a lot of lies and justifications. Absolute denial. And then, horror of horrors, trying so hard not to be who they really are, deep down inside in the dark places. Well, that’s for the therapists I guess. Not my problem.

I knew I was a fucking weirdo right from the start. It is only now that I have a word for it. I’m so happy for my brothers and sisters in neurodivergence who needed advocacy. Who did care. Who worried. Terrible, horrible anguish. Who were scolded, or beaten. Who were improperly drugged or given “normalizing” therapy which just made things worse. Within my lifetime left-handed children were beaten, forced to “switch”. Told they were evil. Within my lifetime it was accepted to make fun of disabled people. Within my lifetime girls were forced to wear skirts and heels in all weathers, all day, against their wishes.

And the backwards conservatives say “See? We told you. It was a slippery slope. First they wanted pants and now they want more!” I’m not even bothering to mention gender diversity, it would be too easy.

But today at least you can be a black, atheist, left-handed, lesbian vegan with cerebral palsy without getting into trouble for the most part. Now onward! You can be neurodivergent too. There will still be haters. There will still be those fearful of where it will all end. But safety in numbers. You are among friends. Take off your mask. You don’t need it anymore. And be kind. Some of your haters are struggling with their own mask.

English, like what she is spoke.

Morning. Contrary to popular belief, I have never corrected anyone’s grammar in my life. If you think I do, then that’s because you are secretly aware that yours isn’t quite up to snuff and you are over-sensitive. I don’t do it. I frequently comment on grammar, but I never correct anyone. These are two different things.

It’s entirely up to you whether you use standard (aka “good” or “correct”) grammar. You may not give a damn. You may do it on purpose to annoy people like me. You may think that your version is regional (dialect) and therefore untouchable by the great unwritten rule of “it’s culture so it’s adorable”. You may simply prefer your version. In any of these cases, go away now, do not read any more of this, carry on as you were, and don’t blame me if you make a fool of yourself in posh circles.

However, if you care, if you want to improve your grammar, or remind yourself of rules you knew once but forgot, please read on.

Two things have been hurting my ears lately.

First is the use of “anymore” when you really mean “these days”.

It is perfectly OK to say “We don’t do that anymore”. But when you are referring to something you do, you can’t use it. It can only be used with a negative. Why? Don’t ask me. I did not create this language, I just speak it properly. So, if you are telling me about a new thing “It seems to be the way to do it anymore” you are WRONG. You sound like an idiot. Try using “these days”, “currently”, or simply “now”.

Second, is the use of the past participle to describe something that must be done in the present or future. Don’t believe me? Surely nobody does this? They do.

“The grass needs mown”.

It is perfectly acceptable to say “needs to be mown”. But you can’t use a past participle on its own. It was mown, it will be mown, it could be mown, are all fine. Participles are used like adjectives sometimes, but they still require a verb to help them along.

You can also say “needs mowing”. That suggests now or soon. But mown refers to the past. Your lawn may be long overdue for a cut, in fact, it may be 3 feet tall, but any action you take on it cannot be retroactive.

I see this quite often too with giving dinner to the dog: “The dog wants fed”. No. The dog wishes he were fed, but he isn’t. He wants to be fed (now, or soon). That’s the whole problem.

Third……..

I am still seeing educated people confuse than and then. These are two totally different words. No relation. Please don’t tell me it’s because the vowel sounds the same if you say it quickly. Lame excuse. Here are other words in similar pairs that you never get wrong.

band bend
sand send
man men
land lend
tan ten
pan pen

HMMMM??????

Get it right.

The old ones are still thriving………

Justin Hawkins almost melted down when he saw “should of” in the lyrics on a music video, but it was the animator’s error, the band had it written correctly on the sleeve notes. The band are forgiven. The animator will be sent glitter.

Your/You’re

There/Their/They’re

It’s/Its

Affect/Effect

Loose/Lose

<deep sigh>

And what is going on with “on accident”? OK, English has a LOT of prepositions, and they don’t always make sense, but it is, and always has been “by accident”.

The only one of these I will allow an alternative is “weekend”. Strictly speaking, it is “at the weekend”. But I know you all prefer “on the weekend” because it matches “on Friday”. The logic there is solid, so we’ll overlook it. Some of these are definitely regional and therefore lots of wiggle room, such as sandwiches (in or on) and “out back” instead of “out the back”.

Last one today is the lay/lie confusion. You lay a thing, you lie. If you only lay, then it’s past tense. That one’s tricky, I know, but it has a different meaning. Only a chicken can lay on the grass.

I lied!

(SNORT)

One more.

If you say “literally” and mean “figurately”, you’re an idiot.

Photo below is of a synonym bun. <huge theatrical wink>

The Brain

I had 3 things in mind, and then I watched a Josh Homme interview, and dammit that man is a genius, so I’m combining all three unrelated things here, and because they are all “me” things, they are related. Josh said so. Go argue with him.

They all concern the brain, so there’s that.

I’ll begin with a little thought that cropped up about education. I often run into people who wax poetic about the school of life. They may or may not actually deride formal education. But I also meet people who insist that higher education is the key to all learning. Well, you’re all wrong! These are all just means to an end, but somewhere along the way you have to learn HOW to learn. You might get really lucky and have a parent who teaches you that before you even go to school. You may get a great teacher who does it. Or you may go through every level of education and never get it. If you are an absolute genius, you may get it instinctively, but that’s pretty rare. I’m smarter than the average bear, but I needed input there.

Unfortunately, education is mainly focused on teaching you things. Fill your head with facts. There has been a bit more effort to teach the “why” behind things in recent years, but they don’t even do that well. I’m not blaming teachers (before anyone says anything). They have an impossible job. They are overworked, underpaid, undersupported, underfunded, and then blamed for everything. Yes, there are some really crappy ones too, but mostly they are doing their best within time constraints and silly expectations, and a class full of kids who aren’t even listening. Somehow despite all of this most of us come out literate and with a head full of facts.

Silly me, I taught my kids how to learn before they started school. I answered all the “whys” honestly. I openly admitted that, as they suspected, many adults are stupid, actually. They are all a bit over-capable as a result. Maybe a bit cynical. If you’ve ever chatted with my eldest, for example, you know exactly what I mean. But at least they are all idiot-proof.

I went to a terrible school. I won’t bore you with the details, but to give you an idea of how encouraging they were, they didn’t even suggest further education to anyone. In fact, we got the impression that was out of our reach. Something other people did. I’ve told this story many times over the years, and some of the reactions I get are very dismissive. As I’ve said, I am of above-average intelligence, but it did not cross my radar that it was an option for me to go on to further education. What sort of school allows that to happen to one of its best students?

Just one little snippet to give you an idea of what I was up against. I got such a high mark in my English “O” Level that my English teacher said I must have cheated. Oh yes. She was one of the best.

But, life’s been good to me. No regrets. Still, I have had to blow my own trumpet a bit from time to time, to compensate for leaving school at (only just) 17. I went straight into a good civil service job, mind you, but times have changed. You wouldn’t be able to do that now.

I have always read a lot, and mostly non-fiction. As a child, I got one of those big encyclopedia sets, started at A, and just went through. I studied maps. I watched documentaries. I slurped up information every chance I could. I didn’t stop learning just because my education was over, sadly so many people do. Then when I was in my late 40s and all my kids were at least teenagers, I discovered an online learning facility called Coursera. And it was FREE. Universities all over the world offer the courses, with support. There are no credits given, and they tell you openly that you are not getting the “full” course that the students attending the actual universities get. But having talked to students who were doing this as extra to their official studies, it was really very similar. The main difference of course being that you could pick and choose from so many areas that it wouldn’t even equate to a liberal arts degree. It’s done purely for the enjoyment of learning.

But for me, it did something else as well. It’s rather hard to pin it down because I was already capable of critical thinking, academic writing, and all that jazz. It did something weird and permanent to my brain in how I studied. It made it possible afterward to learn anything (anything) faster and more effectively. So, it affected my cooking skills, for example. It made planning trips easier (and bearing in mind I’d spent two years as a travel agent, which did not help with that). It made me a better seamstress, a better gardener, and a better writer. Yes, specific things I studied came in useful too, but not as much as the experience of studying at that level.

They say you can re-wire your brain. People have to do it after head injuries, or emotional trauma, often with support. But my experience was not conscious or even voluntary. After the two years I spent studying I felt wiser.

There are many ways to become wiser. I see people doing it just by paying attention as they age. I also see others definitely not paying attention, and getting stupider if anything. Time is not enough.

To conclude Part One: If you can obtain ANY form of extra education, take the opportunity. It really does make a difference. Oh, and just in case, always ensure young people know it’s a real option.

I started writing a multi-part thing about my own experience as a not-quite-neurotypical person and got sidetracked (that never happens to not-quite-neurotypical, much, huh) but I’d like to interrupt that train of thought with a bit of a backlash I’ve started seeing lately. Goes like this……

When I was young (when dinosaurs walked the earth, ho ho ho, get it over with) nobody ever discussed the concept of neurotypical or otherwise. Maybe experts talked about it behind closed doors, but it hadn’t seeped out. I think I first heard of ADD in the 80s, and didn’t know much about it, other than if my daughter had red food colouring she went berserk, and I was told variously that this was ADD, or that I was imagining it. Not that any of this was a professional opinion, I might add. Just family, friends, and neighbours. I’m pragmatic so I just stopped giving it to her.

In fact, I really knew nothing about anything in that area until a doctor suggested Tom might have Asperger’s. When I don’t know what I need to know, I find out. So, first I went to my computer (and this was 1998, so it was a rather more highbrow place) and learned everything it was possible to learn about that (then) without getting a medical qualification. Then I took my son to a pediatrician who said he was unquestionably an oddball, but far too nice for a diagnosis of Asperger’s. But things moved fast at that time, and two years later when the school refused to have him back until we got a diagnosis of SOMETHING, the diagnostics had changed. TBTB had realized you could be autistic and nice too. The new pediatrician said it was obvious that he had Asperger’s, there was no treatment, and he sent the school a very blunt letter telling them to just deal with it. As he was a flight risk they did not enjoy this because it meant never taking their eyes off him, UNLESS they allowed him to spend his entire day in the library. In other words, they had to think outside the box. It’s hard to believe that so recently schools could have so much of an issue with “accommodations”, but there we were.

And here we are. Now, not 25 years later, my young grandson in the same situation has every accommodation, staff at school who know exactly how to work with him, and nobody uses the term Asperger’s anymore. The thinking behind that is complex, but by including it within autism (which is certainly IS) people get the support they need. Autism is increasingly understood, supported, and even appreciated for how autistic people benefit our world.

Frankly, we’d be f***ed without them.

But to continue on nomenclature. Autism as a term will be phased out too. You watch. Words are only useful when they help us understand, and it really doesn’t, because it covers such a wide range of ability. It’s even frowned upon now to refer to high-functioning autism, and for good reason. And then there’s ADHD, which used to be ADD, but will no doubt get a new name at some point. And when you add that to autism, you get “The Spectrum” which is closer to the truth, but we still haven’t quite got it sorted out.

Increasingly I’m hearing the term neurodivergent, shortened to ND, which is much better. Except, the only people who really understand it are still those “in the field” as it were, meaning neurodivergent people, professionals who work with them, and (hopefully) their families and friends.

The more we learn, the more we see it. There are people saying “AHA!” all over the world, as we realize that quirks and foibles that people have always had, are actually signs of neurodivergency. And here comes the backlash.

“Well if it’s THAT common, then it IS normal, isn’t it?”

Hard to argue. Is it just a numbers thing? If you take 100 people, and consider Quirk A, and 49 of them have the quirk, it’s sort of normal, right?

Well, maybe, but how few does it have to be to be recognized as not normal? And why does it matter anyway?

Here’s why. 1 quirk does not make you neurodivergent. Maybe 50 quirks don’t either. But if they all happen at once, and it prevents you from doing things that “normal” people do, then something is amiss. I mean, if you want to be difficult there is no such thing as normal. No two people are alike, not really, we are all just a list of behaviours and abilities, and there’s a lot of random in there. Plus, we change over time. In fact, a lot of people think this may be all part of human evolution. Like all mutations, sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. If it prevents you from breeding, that’s the end of that.

It’s all about coping. If you are autistic, and your faulty social skills make friendships very difficult, but you have a loving and supportive family, you may not care. The only people my son calls friends are online, he hasn’t known them for long, and they come and go. He doesn’t care. He has cats and siblings, and he’s too busy for a social life anyway. He will tell you he “doesn’t do people” but if you met him he’d be quite charming. For about ten minutes. Then he’d be exhausted. It takes all the coping skills he’s got to be social and it wears him out.

People like Tom who are forced to socialize suffer greatly. As a result, they can be annoying, difficult, or even aggressive. They are also frequently bullied their entire lives by those who don’t get it. Substance abuse, depression, jail, and suicide are side effects. They can’t “just be normal”.

But surely some really are more high-functioning than others? If you break it down into specifics, then yes. Intellect? Some of the highest IQs ever have been in autistic people. Others are intellectually impaired to a considerable degree. It stands to reason that this affects how you go through life, how independent you can be, how others see you, and yes, how well you function on a day-to-day basis. It will therefore affect you financially, obviously. But just because you have a high intellect does not guarantee functionality. Life is more complicated than that. Tom is perfectly capable of being the stereotypical genius physicist. Except he could not cope at university. He could do the work. Geez. With one hand tied behind his back. But living alone, having to get himself up, remembering to wash, shopping for food, being in class on time, being in a huge institution with lots of people, talking to strangers, crossing busy streets…….these are all things that would be problematic one at a time. Put them all together and he’d melt down. He’d never last the first week. So, is he high-functioning or not?

Perhaps a better example is a person with ADHD who is undiagnosed. Her quirks are all there in plain sight, but nobody has ever put them all together to even consider what “the problem” is. She tries so hard to just cope, but eventually burns out. Assuming she’s just depressed she seeks treatment for that and it doesn’t work. It’s only when, finally, a doctor tells her she has classic adult female ADHD and is treated with appropriate medication, that she gets her life back. She’s a friend of mine. It could have ended differently had she not had support.

Some people have autism and ADHD. These are related, and have quite a few crossovers. And yet some of these people are unaware they have either, and they are struggling. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” One day, when the light bulb goes on, maybe they can get help. Maybe.

To conclude Part Two, whatever you call it, if your quantity and type of quirks and foibles, all put together, are making it difficult to cope with what we think of as everyday life, it sure as hell isn’t normal. Life isn’t easy, but it’s a lot easier for some than others. Maybe you can deal with them one at a time, or maybe the very nature of your situation makes that impossible. What you don’t need is to be told it’s normal. To be dismissed. If it’s a problem, then it’s a problem.

My genius autistic son helped me understand something this week. He studies normal people. His idea of normal people, anyway. We are fascinating to him. One of the things normal people do I don’t consider normal at all. I’m on Tom’s team here. The difference is, that it just annoys me, and I’ve never looked at it from his perspective.

People say things they don’t mean.

Autistic people absolutely do not do that. They may lie (rarely) or they may make small-talk they think is expected of them, but if you are having a conversation on their terms, they say exactly what they are thinking. It’s why they can be seen as tactless or just plain rude. It’s a brutish type of honesty and of course it gets them into trouble. Highly intelligent autistic people learn to lie in certain circumstances, but it’s not something they are comfortable with.

I can bullshit with the best of them. I can schmooze. I hate it, but whatever. Needs must. The thing people do that drives me crazy is when they talk rubbish. It’s not the truth, but it’s not a lie either, a lie is intentional. It serves a purpose, even if it’s only self-aggrandization. No, this is just talk for talk’s sake. Nonsense. Throwaway comments. Generalizations. And then worse. Insults and accusations. But when you call them out on it? “I didn’t mean it.” All apologies. How is that normal?

And yet, we are told that “everyone does it”. Or to put it another way, because it is a bad behaviour that is commonplace, which means the majority of people (there’s that numbers thing again) are guilty of it at some time or other, then it is considered normal. Not right, obviously, but somehow just a human failing.

Why? Because they have excuses! “I didn’t mean what I said, because I was tired/stressed/angry/drunk/hungry/not feeling well/etc”

And we are expected to forgive them.

Well. I don’t do that. I’m not usually rude to people, but if I am I bloody well mean it.

When talking to Tom about this, he laughed but then he said “it’s a learned behaviour”.

Oh boy, that was an aha moment for me. Yes, I get it. I get it. This is the downside of normal. Monkey see, monkey do. “Everybody” does it. “All the time”. Without even thinking about what they are saying. Shit-talking is a social norm.

Meanwhile, the autistic people are watching. Not copying. Wondering why they are the ones singled out as weird.

To conclude Part Three, those of us on the borderlines of normal aren’t so sure if normal is what we want to be.

A Little Of What You Fancy

For some reason, purely coincidental but amazingly synchronous, everywhere I go lately people are talking about “alternative” remedies a lot. Alternative to what, I’m never quite sure, but I think they mean (or they think they mean) alternative to pharmaceuticals. I’m here to set you straight.

I am NOT a medical professional. Not even a little bit. I don’t even have a First Aid Certificate.

My qualifications are that 1) I can read, and 2) I was raised by a hippy.

My mother was into “alternative” before it became the huge business it is today. It is so big that any of you who bitch about Big Pharma should also bitch about Big Natural. And there are far more charlatans in the latter. The thing is, there isn’t a bad guy and a good guy here. Well, there are plenty of bad guys at the distribution level making a lot of money off people’s fears, but you know what I mean. I’m going to tell you a secret. I know, with absolute confidence, which remedy is the best.

It’s the one that works.

So, let’s lay to rest the idea that either a pharmaceutical or a “natural” product is better than the other. OK? That whole idea is bullshit. The only good medicine is effective medicine. End of. It doesn’t matter if it was created in a lab with ingredients that don’t exist anywhere else, or made of organic fungus up a tree on a full moon by a 12th-generation shaman. If it cures you it is GOOD. If you have any other opinion here, you are a nutter.

Yes, there are such things as side-effects. Yes, you should take those into account. YES! Sometimes they are worse than the original problem. In which case…….don’t use that remedy folks. UNLESS! ………there’s a solution to fix the side-effects, and so on. Now, we all have an anecdote about Aunt Maud who started off with a hangnail, and due to a chain of events from side-effects and remedies thereof ended up dead, but along that chain were idiots whose licenses needed revoking, or possibly completely random reactions nobody could predict. Either way, there are no guarantees in medicine, just experiences, educated guesses, risk/benefit analyses, and also patient compliance. Among other things.

I have lost relatives to medical mistakes. It did not make me distrust the entire profession. It did make me read vociferously, so I knew why. And for next time.

In an era where excellent medical care exists, and pharmaceuticals are bloody good actually, why does anyone even bother with alternatives?

There are several reasons.

First and foremost, depending where you live, and all other things considered, home-remedies are often cheaper. We are very lucky in this family. Between the Ontario medical system, our excellent benefits, and not being poor, we never need use an alternative remedy for financial reasons. But sometimes we still do, because…..

We have the knowledge. Having been raised on this stuff, and then continued reading up on it my entire life I usually know what to do for most minor issues, can fix things with stuff I already own, and it saves time and bother and why the hell not. I cook my own food too. You know. Same idea. I can AFFORD to eat out, but I like cooking, and I don’t have to put shoes on.

There may come a time, who knows, when those of us who can do this are really useful. In a massive snowstorm. In a dystopian future. Or just when the waiting time at the urgent care is stupid. For whatever reason, sometimes an alternative is just that. When my son fell off a roof during Covid lockdown they took him to a special hospital in a helicopter. You won’t be getting a helicopter for an ear infection just because the highways are shut. You will need a neighbour who knows what to do.

Last but most definitely not least, sometimes the alternative really honestly is better. Figuring that out takes the sort of intimate knowledge of the situation most doctors will never have, and certainly don’t have time for. This is most true with digestive or skin problems. They take trial and error and patience and TIME. If you don’t become your own expert, you will never sort it out. The vast majority of friends I have fixed up on those two had doctors who just shrugged and lost interest. Once they rule out obvious or serious problems, you’re on your own. Start reading.

And then there’s pain. Yeah. Our favourite! I always laugh when that one crops up in “alternative” discussions. I usually say nothing until they’ve all finished arguing and then simply say “Opium is a plant”.
And here we are with an opioid crisis caused largely by doctors short on time and options (I’m being charitable) and suddenly everyone thinks cannabis is the best alternative because it’s a plant. Plant wars. Ay ay ay.

Again. The best remedy is the one that works. And always weighing up the side effects.

So, here’s a little story because it’s something I’m working on right now. I’m trying to help my son (the one who fell off the roof) with his long-term pain. Thankfully his doctor supports avoiding strong drugs because he’s only 30 and it would be for life. That’s not a road you want to go down. His suggestion is Aleve on really bad days, if you must, and heat treatment, exercise, etc generally. We asked about topical balms, and his answer was simple “If you can find one that works, USE IT.” From a top Toronto orthopedic surgeon. If it works, use it.

And we dived in. Our first effort involved capsaisin oil. A 7,000-year-old pain remedy clinically proven to actually relieve pain. A bona fide NATURAL remedy! WOO HOO! And that’s where something I knew anyway about all medicine became a Really Big Deal.

Dosage. It’s not just critically important when ingested. Too much capsaisin oil will take a layer of your skin off. Too little will do nothing. What works is a delicate balance AND it’s different for everyone. That’s why when you buy commercial products containing this, they sell it in several strengths. It’s not only for levels of pain, it’s because skin varies dramatically in what it can take. Ergo, tailor-made is best.

Does it work? Yes. But not long-term. You have to re-apply it far too often for skin comfort IMHO, and we have moved on to other experiments, but for quick relief it’s as good as popping an Aleve if not better.

I tell you this story because it pretty much covers all the points I make. It’s cheap, it’s stuff you probably already have in the house, you can work with it to find what suits you, and you can deal with possible side-effects simply by adjusting the amount.

It’s not a magic bullet. If only there were one of those. If anyone ever finds a cheap, effective pain-killer with no side-effects, they are going to be very, very rich. But life isn’t like that.

If you haven’t already Googled capsaisin oil (or maybe you don’t need to) you’ll learn it has other uses. One is a weapon. And this is why, as a twist on what my dear friend Dennis is wont to remind you, nothing is good nor bad lest use make it so.

Before I go, if you’ve never heard me on this topic before: EVERYTHING IS A CHEMICAL. Thankfully, or none of this would be possible.

A Bao By Any Other Name

Random discovery last week, a recipe for “runzas”. Bread casing, savoury filling. Looked simple and delicious so I put them on the “must try” list. Reading about them I learned there is an entire Runza fast food chain in Nebraska.

The dough is wonderful to work with and so easy:

1/2 cup hot water
1 1/2 tsp regular yeast
2 tbls sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups flour

Note: I’ve seen other recipes calling for milk and butter to be added. You do you, but it worked out fine as above.

Only add half the flour to begin with, but dump everything else in a mixer and make a dough. Add as much more flour as you need then knead well. Let it rise.

The basic filling is:
1 pound ground beef
2 cups chopped cabbage
1/2 cup chopped onion
S+P to taste (use lots of pepper)

Cook this together until the cabbage is tender. Takes about 15 minutes.

Divide dough and filling each into 12 portions. Roll dough portions out to 6″ round. Put meat portion in middle, sprinkle cheese on top. Gather up sides like a little sack and squidge together at the top to seal. Turn upside-down on a baking sheet. Brush beaten egg on top. Bake at 350F/175C for 20 minutes.

It occurred to me when reading the recipe I found, that seasoning would be a big deal as the ingredients are so simple. So first things first, when I noted it down I wrote “LOTS OF PEPPER” and underlined it. My reasoning here is that a Cornish Pastie, which is a very simple hand-held item, enclosed in pastry rather than bread, has pepper as its main seasoning. Without that it’s pretty bland unless you add a ton of salt, and these days we are all trying not to do that.

Meat inside bread. Where have I seen that before?

I often make Char Siu Bao, a Chinese delicacy of barbecued pork (char siu) encased in bread dough (bao). Bao is simply the Chinese for bun. There are other types of bao and I’ve enjoyed all of them.

But runzas are far more European in style, and I learned that an even more basic item exists in Eastern Europe, the bierock, often without cheese. This in turn appears to be related to the börek, a pastry from a bit farther east. You can start to see that there are endless examples of these. Small, portable, easy to sell on the street. Fill with whatever you’ve got.

All around the world, calzones, empanadas, yada yada.
So, my choice of seasoning was my own. But how do you make a whole business out of a simple item? Some genius on Reddit had back-engineered (or stolen) the seasoning recipe lauded by Runza inc. as a secret spice blend. Where have we heard that one before. It turns out to be nothing more than paprika and cayenne, which was the route I was aiming for anyway.

The end result (because I didn’t know they were supposed to be long and thin like a hot dog) looked exactly like baos, and tasted great. Given the choice, I prefer the bolder Chinese seasonings, but it was extremely good, and the cheese really finished it off nicely. It called for American cheese but we just so happened to have some grated cheddar and mozzarella in the fridge, so I used that.

And when the storm kept me awake in the night my brain went to variations. The obvious one is all the ingredients in a bacon cheeseburger. I think Runza inc. do this. They have a few other varieties. But they are all very American. There is no limit except your imagination. My first experiment is going to be with smoked gouda, ham, and mushrooms. I shall also try butter chicken. And after that…….sky’s the limit.

British version? Bangers and baked beans.
Seafood version? Shrimp with a wasabi sauce.
German version? Veal, mushrooms, and tomatoes.
AND HOW ABOUT PULLED PORK!!!!!

And so on.

Why am I so excited about this? Well, anything you can put in a bun, or a pie, can go in. From ANY CUISINE ON THE PLANET, but with LESS bread involved!!!! Gyros I could actually finish. Fajitas. Feta and spinach with salmon. OMG. And so less messy. Perfect for lunchboxes.

And if you want to keep it familiar for the kids, just use pepperoni and cheese and pizza sauce and call it a Hot Pocket.

We’re still not done. There is no reason it has to be a savoury filling. I’m thinking fruit and custard for a start.

We couldn’t decide what to do as a side so we just had those. But pickles, cole slaw, anything would work.

If I were 20 years younger I’d be on the phone to my realtor looking for a restaurant right now. Honestly. The potential is massive.

The Complete Guide To Me – Part Two – Different, or Difficult?

So, that was all very nice wasn’t it. Bit of a warning about quirks and a few negatives. Now let’s dive in deeper. No. We need a bit of background first! Let’s go back to my childhood again.
I’ve had a lifetime of being the odd one. Was I born that way? I think so. But I blame my mother a lot for being my first enabler. She had this belief that no matter how much it wasn’t “typical”, I should be allowed to be me. For a woman born in 1927, she was so far ahead of her time, she was a de facto rebel. But here’s the big one………

If you haven’t read the relevant old blog, I’ll just recap that I blame EVERYTHING about my personality to not liking tea. Yes. Tea.

Imagine being a child in ENGLAND, in the 1960s, before choice was invented, and rejecting tea. If you are not familiar with the social norms of 1960s England, this was worse than being a Satanist transvestite prostitute. Imagine the looks on the faces of the proper old English people when not only did this child very politely but firmly refuse tea, but her mother allowed this. My mother would take coffee instead, but she believed that children had rights to refuse things, so long as it didn’t cause anyone any trouble, and it was done nicely. So I would say, no thank you, just water please. At this point, they would try to force me to drink orange squash or milk, and my “just water please” which has to be the most humble request in the history of hospitality, was met with dirty looks and sounds of exasperation. VERY RARELY did anyone simply smile and say “Very well, water then.”

Children pick up things from what you do, not what you say. I learned that trying to be no trouble, being polite, and all that jazz, simply wasn’t good enough. If you did not conform, you were weird, you were trouble, you were…..bad.

Also, I was a tomboy. There are many blogs about that, but I must point out that it was less of a deal to the conservative-minded folk that I wore trousers than the fact I rejected their tea. Still, it did not exactly endear me to them. They would sort of accommodate me, rummaging around for their son’s old toy cars for me to play with. And I would sit quietly and play, not being any trouble to anyone. And they would glance at me from time to time and wonder.

Gender and sex were never talked about back then. But that didn’t stop what went on in people’s heads and of course, I heard much later that many of our circle assumed I would grow up to be a lesbian. Everybody knew one. “Spinsters”. “Maiden Aunts”. They had “very dear friends” who they spent all their time with, or even shared a home with. But I wasn’t so inclined. In fact, if you keep reading you’ll discover that my sexuality is pretty extreme.

I just didn’t do girl stuff. It wasn’t interesting. I was given a toy tea set. It was beautiful, pale green chintz. I didn’t play with it because I had no idea what to do with it. My cousin came over and wanted to play with it. I said OK, and she broke it. I was sad because it was a nice thing. Now I have a full-size antique pale green chintz tea set, that I never use because I don’t drink tea. But it’s beautiful.

The only thing that I liked that was remotely acceptable for a girl was arts and crafts, so I was indulged in that from all quarters, and being the only child of a widow, I was indulged a lot by my mother’s band of lovely friends. Her manager, who had a gorgeous sprawling Surrey home with TWO gardeners, made us very welcome and she introduced me to another passion. Good food. Another of her friends would take us to lunch in some extremely nice restaurants, including central London. We even went to the Savoy once. I discovered at a young age that I liked smoked salmon canapés. Much nicer than tea.

We didn’t have the money for that at home, but we had plenty of international food because my mother liked it. She wasn’t a good cook, but she did make a fine paella, and because we both liked seafood we had a lot of it. At 11 I started learning to cook at school and within two years I had taken over most of the cooking at home. It helped her out, she came home to a cooked dinner instead of having to start cooking after a day at work, and I went through her one huge Good Housekeeping cookery book from cover to cover. Printed in the early 1950s (I think she got it as a wedding gift, not sure) there was a lot of substitutions because they still had rationing and that helped me understand the workings behind recipes. And soup. That book is part of the reason I can make 5 star soup out of anything.

There was something else that was formative. My mother loved music. The radio was always on and I am lucky enough to be so old that I remember Beatles songs being new releases. They weren’t my first love though. That was the Rolling Stones, because they were local boys and it was a really big deal that they were doing so well. I fell for Mick Jagger before I was 2 years old. The first record I bought myself, as in, it was my money, and I walked up to the counter in the record store and asked for it, was “Satisfaction”. I was 3. My long-suffering grandmother, who took me to get it, probably tried very hard not to listen to the lyrics, but let me play it over and over until she dreamed of it. The sheer patience and tolerance of a woman born in 1899. It’s mind-blowing really.

Now here’s a funny thing. Already at that age, I was listening to the individual instruments on the records. I was getting an idea of verse and chorus, of genres, of styles of singing, and so on, and it will therefore no doubt surprise you that I am NOT an accomplished musician. I ought to have been, I was so into music. I learned to play lots of instruments. Badly. Had I concentrated on one, maybe, MAYBE I’d have been good at it in time. But maybe not. I have tiny hands. I can’t span an octave on a piano, and there are guitar chords I physically cannot reach. From the tip of my pinky to the tip of my thumb at full stretch is not quite 5″. And that’s as a grown woman. As a child when I started learning, my piano teacher just looked at me and said “Ah”.

It never really bothered me, because actually, I just wanted to sing. Guess what. I can’t sing. Bloody typical. So I just obsessed over listening to music. I was so knowledgeable about it all, I was included in circles I’d never have got into otherwise. And boys took me seriously.

Boys.

Despite being such a tomboy when I hit puberty I discovered that I was extremely (!) attracted to boys. Contrary to popular belief, boys like tomboys. Especially feisty tomboys. I had more boys round me than any of my friends, and they just couldn’t figure it out. They did all the “right” things, and I was in my jeans and knock-off Converse, getting guy after guy. Curse of the big blue eyes. By the time I met Martin at 17, I had been through enough men for a lifetime and was ready to settle down. He recalls he couldn’t take his eyes off my “spray-on” jeans. In return, I fell for his long curly hair and big brown eyes. I am a total sucker for big brown eyes. And he makes me laugh. And he lets me be me. My second enabler.

He isn’t a saint. He does occasionally express a dislike for some of my choices, but I do the same to him so it’s all fair. The point is, he sucks it up. He knows that the package deal, the Melanie that is loving and patient and cooks and cleans (occasionally) and takes care of him, and is still keen on bonking him after all these years…….also comes with a very independent mind and attitude. He knows I don’t want lingerie or heels or diamonds or manicures or chocolate, but he knows I want paint and gnomes and whiskey and Foo Fighters tickets. And he obliges. We are one of those combinations that works against all odds, like Ozzy and Sharon, or John and Yoko. Because on the face of it, we are not compatible. Or to be honest, I’m not really compatible with anyone, but he puts up with me.

As do my kids. They are all old enough to see right through me (fairly sure my eldest grandson has figured me out too), and we are friends, equals, I don’t parent them unless they need me to. I’m there if they need me, any time day or night, but I don’t judge, I don’t demand, I don’t expect anything.

Jump ahead to now, all of this had two end results. One, I was never troubled by being different. I was never ashamed, never hid it, never “struggled” to fit in. I just never bothered. I always knew who I was, and convention be damned. There was no fight, no argument. I just stayed authentic no matter what. Secondly, I have never changed. There is some idea out there that as you age you become either eccentric or more conservative. I’ve done neither. I was always eccentric, so there was no becoming. And I don’t do conservative. I am, boringly, no different from how I was as a child. People who have known me that long have pointed this out many times. “You don’t change!” and it’s not exactly a compliment. It means “You are incorrigible!”. Yes. I am.

Whatever spectrum I’m on, I fucking own it.

That isn’t how it is for everyone. Maybe not even most people. Most people who find themselves labelled as different are at some point told not to be. Sometimes they try to conform. That’s harmful. Harmful. It’s tiring, apart from anything else. Pretending to be normal, copying normal people, holding back on who you are is EXHAUSTING. It’s physically and mentally draining, and if people do it too much for too long the damage can be permanent. And it can lead to horrible effects, such as anger – yelling, violence, harm to self or others. It can lead to anxiety and depression. It can destroy relationships, get people fired, make people homeless. In extremis, it can kill.

Mostly though, it just makes people miserable. Grumpy. Hard to live with. Hard to work with. Less successful.

Who decides societal norms anyway?

So, because I was allowed to, I chose to be me. Whatever that is. Instead of spending all my time and effort trying to be something I’m not, I devote all my spare energy on trying to be a better me. I have plenty of flaws, so there’s no shortage of things to do there.

But I don’t suffer. When you’ve always been the odd one, nobody notices a few more oddities. I just don’t care. I’m not hurting anyone, hell no, I go out of my way to help others. I was never one to try to conform just to make people comfortable, but I won’t do anything actually harmful. I just don’t bother trying to fit in. It’s the same with where I go – I don’t belong anywhere, therefore I belong everywhere.

I hope, oh I really hope, that as you read this, if you are struggling with any of this, I am helping. And I hear you say “OK, but what are we actually talking about here? What is it that you do, that this is all leading to?”

Wait for Part 3.