Pointers

Apparently, people can identify others in a tenth of a second, or less. They can remember hundreds of faces, and recognize thirty classmates as "familiar" after seeing them once.

I say "apparently", because such concepts are so far out of my experience, if my mom hadn't told me, I would have never suspected a thing. It seems impossible to contemplate; a state of advanced mental technology on par with "Star Trek" computers that understand conversational English, and androids walking down the street.

Last week I timed myself recognizing people, and found my average was two seconds. Twenty times slower. In the time a "normal" person can recognize twenty people, I identify one. This is an improvement, thanks to my new Advance Recognition Algorithm:

1: List the names of the people you will be expected to identify in the current situation

2: Attempt to determine if they're around:

2.1: List each person's identifying traits such as hair, backpack, clothing or glasses.

2.2: Search for each person using this cue

2.3: Remember the current appearance of each person identified and associate it with their name

3: Conduct whatever social business required recognizing all those people

Identifying people is an exercise in logic and probabilities. I do not think "There's Sarah!". I think "That person is probably Sarah," or "That person may be Sarah, but I can't tell." To find my brother in a store, I look for his bright orange hoodie and messy anime hair. I have an idea of how his face looks, but find it easier to search for his clothes. When I learn to recognize someone, their name becomes a pointer leading to a list of details stored as text. (A pointer, for non-programmers, is an address. Your home address is a pointer to your house.) The upside is I don't forget names. (The downside is I can't remember someone unless I can spell their name.)

Sometimes my pointers don't work. They point to the wrong thing, and I get two people's identifying details mixed up. Or they point to nothing at all, which means I have no way to recognize someone. Heaven forbid someone else should forget a name: "You know, she's got a thin little nose, and very round eyes…" This is like giving someone your home address (which does not point to your phone) so they can call your cell.

It does not occur to me that this is different, or wrong, because for me it is not. Neither is it caused by learning programming, which only gave me the vocabulary to describe my system. Though I suspect the "other way" is better, my pointers work well enough.

Doom, Despair and Literary Analysis

 Tomorrow is the first day of the Fall 2014 semester of community college, the start of my last year before (hopefully) going off to "real" college…and (cue ominous music) the first day of English 2: Critical Analysis and Intermediate Composition!

In case the imaginary ominous music didn't tip you off, this is Bad News. On the Doom Scale of 1-10, 1 being least doom-y (a butterfly), and 10 being most doom-y (college applications, SATs, incomprehensible programming assignments), it ranks about a 15, higher than calculus, printer malfunctions, and spiders combined. For comparison, English 1 was about a 7, and only because, like English 2, it was an accelerated online class and I'd never done one before. Doom, I thought. Doom, despair and bad grades!

But English 1 was surprisingly doomless. We had readings, yes, and discussed them, but they were nonfiction, our final project was a research paper, and we wrote like I imagine engineers do: gathering information, discussing it, and summarizing it in double-spaced MLA-formatted papers. Analysis was straightforward: Author A uses more personal anecdotes than Author B, who cites more scientific studies. My greatest enemy was MS Word, which insisted on moving page numbers from the right to the left, and periodically hiding my cursor.

English 2 (cue the doom drums), is all about Literary Analysis. That means reading fiction (and not the popular kind either, but the dense, classic kind), producing a conclusion about "grand, overarching themes" or "a metaphor for the human condition", and writing an essay on said conclusion. I have no problem with reading, and few problems with writing. The real problem, to use a simile because metaphors are confusing, is that for me, producing a conclusion is like trying to pull chickens' teeth. (Chickens do not have teeth.)

While I understand what happens in a story, I tend to struggle with why. Why does Character A do Stupid Thing B instead of Smart Thing C? Why does he say "I know I shouldn't" and then do it anyway? Why does Character D do something blatantly illegal, and why doesn't Character E put a stop to it? Where do they get these dumb ideas, and how are we supposed to understand their motives if they never explain them properly?* If there was less subtext, and more actual text, I would have no problem; it would all be cause-and-effect. "Ever since Bob's girlfriend had left him for Bill, relations had been strained between the two men." (Several chapters later:) "Bob cackled as his flock of trained pigeons made a precision strike on Bill's new car." That makes sense: Bill stole Bob's girlfriend, therefore Bob is happy when Bill is not. Doom comes when that first sentence is left out: the cause is left unexplained, hidden in subtle clues of the characters' expression and speech, in subtext and metaphor, in things only English majors understand.

I like reading and writing. I love going to the library, immersing myself in a good book, and trying to write my own, somewhat-less-good stories. I'm happy to learn about symbolism and metaphor and allegory, and I can understand someone else's analysis, but I can't write my own without help. I need someone to pull out all those subtle cues, explain the why and help link the metaphor to the story. After that, I can do the rest, I think. I hope, because otherwise…

DOOM…DOOM…and MORE DOOM…

Can you tell I'm obsessed with the word "doom"?

*A proper explanation does not rely on subtext, metaphor, something said 200 pages ago, or the assumption that "everyone already knows". What if instruction manuals were written like that? "The great beast lies still in the pale light of dawn, waiting for its master to free it from endless hibernation." (Translation: "Your car doesn't go by itself.")

Known Unknowns, Unknown Unknowns and the Engineering Method

A known unknown, in engineering jargon, is something you know you don't know. For example, I know that I need to improve my social skills. I know that I can't tell if someone is mad at me or just happened to slam the door shut because they're in a rush. (I usually assume they're mad at me.) I know that I don't know where the boundary between honesty and tattling lies (it moves around a lot). I know that I don't know when to speak and when to shut up.

This is bad enough, but what about the unknown unknowns? These are, quite simply, the things that you don't know you don't know. Either you think you know them (but don't), or you've never thought about them (and therefore never realized you don't know about them). In engineering, these are the unexpected factors you never even considered, like a meteorite falling on your computer, or ants nesting inside. (Now that I've thought of these, however; they are no longer unknown unknowns, but known unknowns.) The goal is to identify the unknown unknowns, turning them into known unknowns, and eventually known knowns.

These unknowns, and the engineering method, are my latest attempt at quantifying, analyzing, and, eventually, solving some of the social tangle. "Proper" social interaction, is a slippery, fluid, subjective thing, a set of rules constantly rewriting themselves, an intricate web through which others dance and I stumble. And no wonder: I like concrete things; right or wrong, black or white. A computer program won't suddenly decide to do something else when you run it. A calculator doesn't give you different answers every Tuesday. A person says one thing and means another, wishes they had said a third, and is thought to have said a fourth!

The engineering design method is simple, concrete, and logical. You begin by identifying the problem. Today's problem: apparently I don't look people in the eyes enough, and may offend them.

The second step is to brainstorm possible solutions to the problem. Maybe I could wear sunglasses! I could get my mom to alert me when I don't look at people so I remember to do it. I could alert myself, or wear a rubber band as a reminder. I could try to explain why I don't look at people so they won't be offended. Maybe nobody will notice, and it's not a problem after all!

Next, weed out the impractical ideas. Almost all of these are impractical except reminding myself to do it, though sunglasses would probably work outside.

Then think of some ways to implement the idea. I could wear a rubber band, like I said, or write a note on my hand. I could somehow train myself to remember every time I see someone. (Too bad there isn't an app for this.) An app! I should get a proximity sensor and have it beep when someone stands close by for a certain amount of time, like they would if talking with me.

Most of these solutions are impractical, including, unfortunately, the sensor. The best solution is for me to remember on my own, but that is also the hardest to implement, so I'll work on written reminders.

We have now arrived at a solution! All that remains is implementation, testing, and revision. How many other social problems can be solved this way?

A New Word!

Autism is an umbrella term. It encompasses Einstein (suspected to have had Aspergers' syndrome), me, classically autistic children who can't speak at all, and everything in between. How can one word do so much? It can't. In meaning so many things, it has been stretched too thin and now means almost nothing! 

 I don't want to call myself autistic. Not because I don't want to be labeled (I like labels,) but because I want to be labeled accurately and precisely. And it seems wrong when the same label applies to severely autistic kids who need so much more help than I do–as if I'll dilute the word's power by stretching its meaning so far. I also don't want a long phrase, or anything with overtly negative connotations.  I want a word that means high-functioning autism or Aspergers' syndrome only, but in fewer words and without the negative connotations of autism and syndrome.

The words I want don't yet exist. So I set out to find some myself:
Mentally Different
This one fits two of the three criteria: it's not too long, and it carries no negative connotation. I've used it before, but there's one major problem: inexactness. What, exactly, is mentally different? It could be anything, not just high-functioning autism! Time to try again…
Aspie
I didn't make this one up, which is good because I don't like it much. It sounds silly, and while it's short, its root is Aspergers' syndrome, which definitely has a negative connotation. (I don't like having a syndrome. It sounds dreadful!)
Neuroatypical
Not too long, not too silly…this one is turning out well. It's not very exact, but since autistic people call "normal" people neurotypical, it's more "connected" to autism than "mentally different" is. Then I looked it up…and found out that according to Urban Dictionary (a notoriously unreliable source), it means someone with autism or a whole host of other disorders; schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, dyslexia, et cetera. Another inexact term!
Nonallistic
The negative of allistic, which is a synonym for neurotypical– someone not on the autism spectrum. If allistic means not autistic, nonallistic must mean autistic. And since we already have autistic to refer to the severe forms, I claim nonallistic for my side of the spectrum; the high-functioning autistics. (I made it up, so I get to decide what it means.)

nonallistic:

adj. | non-a-lis-tic | negative formation of allistic

a person with high-functioning autism or Aspergers' syndrome 

That's it! I've coined a new word! And now that I have my terminology straight, I can get on to what I meant to do before I noticed this problem, which was write about Autism Awareness Month.

More posts to follow soon!

What I See

I've been told my eyes dart around when I talk to people, never lingering on their nose or eyes or wherever you're supposed to look, but flicking up, to the side, out the window, watching passers-by, reading signs, watching out. "Look at people when they talk to you," my mother tells me. "Why do you stare out the window in the car instead of looking at me? You have to look at people."

Well, I do. They're just never the right people. Imagine you're talking to someone. You're standing in the middle of the grocery store gabbing away, having just run into some long-lost friend using the mystical power of Face Recognition. What do you see?

I won't tell you, because I don't know. But here's what I see:

There's a traffic jam in the parking lot, and several employees in bright orange vests are directing traffic. I wish I had a bright orange vest. It would be fun to direct traffic. My favorite cereal is on sale–two for one. A bag dispenser in the produce section is almost out. There's that friendly employee, restocking the chips. He's always doing that. How many chips can people eat? A cart is coming down the aisle, a flickering overhead light reflected in its metal. An angry driver leans on his horn outside. The express lane sign says "10 items or fewer", which is good because "10 items or less" is grammatically incorrect. The produce guy has a big knife for cutting the brown ends off celery. Someone's spending a fortune on groceries in lane 4. Is Mother making a disapproving face at me?

Oh, wait. I'm supposed to look at the person talking to me.

Here's what I see now:

A brown spot has taken up residence on their cheek. Am I looking in the right place? People's noses are boring. Am I staring? Is Mother still making a disapproving face? I try to remember some detail of the shape of their nose, their eyes, their chin– it slips away as soon as my eyes do. I look past them at the traffic directors. Can they tell? Probably. I pull my eyes back to their thoroughly ordinary-looking nose. The need to look around–to know exactly where I am and what surrounds me–grows until it's almost painful. I remind myself that successful engineers have good social skills. There are no spiky crushers on the grocery store ceiling. Spiky crushers do not exist, except in video games. There are other things that fall on you from the ceiling, that paranoid part of me argues, the part that tells me to get behind something when a car drives by, in case they're looking for someone to shoot at. (I really have no idea where that part came from. Nobody has ever been shot at while walking up our street.) I hear a cart creaking behind me. If I turn around to look, Mother will make a disapproving face. In the car, she'll tell me again: "You have to look at people when they talk." And I'll look out the window and admire the scenery, and watch for rogue garbage trucks*, and tell her I'll try.

And I am trying. I'm getting better at looking at people, though I don't think it's improving my face recognition skills, or providing any useful social insights. I try because I've been told that flicking your eyes around–furtive eye movement, when you want a negative connotation–makes you look dishonest. Because I want to be a spacecraft engineer, and nobody will hire someone who twists around to look behind them at every noise. Because maybe if I look at people's faces, eventually I'll start picking out the little details that apparently tell you how they're feeling. But looking at people is hard, especially when there's so many other, more interesting things to look at. So if one day you meet someone whose eyes dart around, looking everywhere but at your face, don't think "They're not paying attention." Maybe they are. Maybe you've run into someone like me, who looks at everything, not just your face.

*I have a problem with garbage trucks. When I was little my room faced an alley across our street where, every Wednesday at some ungodly hour of the morning, a huge garbage truck would come charging along, looking as if it was about to crash through my window until it turned onto the street proper. I have less of a problem with recycling and yardwaste trucks, but they're all too big and noisy.

Tactical Squawking

I was preparing dinner when I heard the noise. I would write it here, but you see, it was the sort of sound it's impossible to spell. Imagine several very ill hawks attempting to sing in a choir, with a dying car engine as accompaniment. As you can imagine, it was a very disturbing noise, both due to its awfulness (is that a word?) and its unexpectedness.

The noise continued in sporadic bursts from my brother's room, where he usually sits quietly at his computer (quietly being the key word here), working on digital art or battling his friends in Team Fortress 2.

I chopped up a bell pepper. QUAAARRWWK!* went the noise, echoing down the stairs.

"What's he doing now?" my mom sighed over the carrot she was grating.

"I don't know! He's so weird!"

KRAAAAEERK! The salad spinner vibrated from the force of the sound (or maybe I'm just being melodramatic). I sliced the radishes with more violence than strictly necessary, venting my exasperation on innocent root vegetables. AEERRRK!  A timer went off, drowning out the next few screeches. Then, just when I thought he'd stopped: ZZZWEEE! EEEEAWK! QUAAAAWH!

We looked at each other, my mom and I. And even though I'm not very good with the social stuff, I knew an unspoken question hung between us. I even knew what it was: What the heck is that ungodly racket?

KKREEEEEAH! I stalked into my brother's room.

"What are you doing?" He was playing a video game; I don't know which one. It was the kind where you run around and shoot people before they shoot you; an online one, with voice-chat.

ZWAAARK! "I'm distracting the other team!" he explained, screeching again. The other players stopped, forgetting to shoot. He smashed their heads with a frying pan.

"Aren't you also distracting your own team?"

"No, they know what I'm doing."

Completely forgetting to yell at him, or even tell him to shut up, I walked into the kitchen and metaphorically died laughing, though not before explaining the awful racket was actually a form of sonic warfare. My mother was not amused, but she didn't see it the way I did: while we were downstairs thinking what is that bozo doing? he was upstairs devising an innovative new strategy.

So the moral of this story is: The mentally different do a lot of things which make absolutely no sense to neurotypicals. When someone does something weird or annoying, before you yell at them, find out their reasoning. Also, don't use voice-chat or my brother might screech in your ear.

Epilogue: It has now been a week since the invention of Tactical Squawking. It is no longer funny. In fact, it's becoming annoying. But considering that's its purpose, I'm not going to complain (though if it keeps up, I might have to change my mind).

*Would you look at that, I managed to spell it after all.

On Personal Shoppers, Disruptive Patterning, and Bad Music at the Mall

I do not like shopping. Well, that's not entirely true. I like grocery shopping, and going to the Apple store. I do not like shopping for clothes. The mall is a terrible place, mostly because all the stores seem locked in competition for the Worst and Loudest Music Award. Almost everything is hideous, and of the stuff that isn't, almost nothing fits. (I am shaped somewhat like a short, tailless Mewtwo.) My brother likes shopping even less, to the point where we have to bribe him with food to get him to cooperate. So on our latest shopping expedition (December 27th, after the crowds are gone) I became his unofficial personal shopper. My mother shops for me sometimes, but she doesn't understand my brother, who won't care if his clothes are microfiber as long as they're soft, and hates anything plaid because it's confusing to look at.* (Mother thinks plaid is cute. I disagree.) So in the interest of avoiding second and third shopping excursions, I made it my job to feel everything for softness, discourage the purchase of ugly plaid things and choose colors (red, orange, gray and navy are good.)

I am not perfect. We're going shopping again today, to return half our purchases for being "too scratchy". But interestingly enough, the things Mother picked out are going back; the shirts with scratchy seams, the shorts with a scratchy waistband she thought would be better than the thick, soft one. I really should have pointed those out and avoided a second shopping trip. Maybe I could be a personal shopper…but only for my brother, and to avoid prolonging our shopping expeditions, because I decided long ago not to work in any industry that involves long discussions with customers.

There's a business idea in here somewhere. Specially trained personal shoppers to buy clothes for the autistic and otherwise mall-averse? Good idea, but it sounds a bit expensive. A store specializing entirely in soft and fluffy things? That might already exist. A quiet mall with soundproofing instead of speakers? Now there's a good idea. If anyone reading this is a mall manager, consider that free business advice.

*Plaid, checks, some stripes and other black-and-white patterns can range from confusing to painful to look at. I consider them disruptive patterns, like the stripes of a zebra which confuse lions trying to pick one zebra out of a herd.

404 Server Error

404 server error: The file or directory you requested could not be found. It may have been moved or deleted.
    I've been practicing my computer voice, and I must say it's improved a lot. I've learned to slow at the end – de - let - ed…– and to add rANdom pitCH chANgeS in the middle of words. Of course, I'm also practicing my r's…see, it's educational! And useful! And…
"STOP PERSEVERATING!!" My dad does not appreciate this new skill. He's irritated; why, exactly, I have no idea. So I switch to my other favorite error, which may or may not exist:
Error: An error occurred, but the error message could not be retrieved due to another error.
    Cue endless repetitions as I figure out which syllables to incorrectly emphasize; where to change pitch; where to slow down. My mother thinks it's cute – not me, but the actual error, which I found on the Internet. My dad thinks I should stop perseverating. I think it's educational.
    First of all, computers are very precise in their language, so I'm learning to enunciate. I'm adding emphasis to my words – true, it's in the wrong places – but that's easy to fix. I've been told I speak in a monotone, so this might be useful.
Second, I've learned most of the 400 and 500 series of server errors, and what causes some of them. 500– internal server error. 402– payment required 405– method not allowed. Which leads me to methods, and servers, and now I'm distracted…again!
Third, and most importantly, I'm learning to listen. Apparently neurotypicals can pick up on all kinds of things from the way people talk. I don't think I can, but maybe I just need to listen. I listen very carefully to GLaDOS and Siri (who, incidentally, is also a bit evil) and our GPS, not to discern some extra meaning from their words, but to mimic them. Not quite the same, I know, but isn't that the first step? If I don't learn this, I'll never get the rest.
See, Daddy? Now, let's hope he's stopped complaining…
404 sERver errOr: The fiLe or direcTORy yoU requESted couLD not bE FOund. IT may haVe BEen mOved oR de-le - ted…
"STOP IT! NO  MORE PERSEVERATING!"

Autism Awareness Month–A Week of Thinking Logically

Happy Autism Awareness Month, everyone! By the end of April, I hope you will be more aware of the mentally different people you may encounter in life. (And yes, I know it's now almost the middle of April, but I had a permissions problem and couldn't log in to post for a while.)
First, let's think about logic. The first thing that comes to my mind is a computer. Computers seem very smart, but are actually very stupid. They can add a thousand numbers in a second, remember a terabyte of data (provided a large enough hard drive), and calculate the fastest route between your house and the grocery store. However, a computer cannot infer meaning from context, compose a well-written sentence or understand an idiom. If a programmer leaves out a comma, the compiler will probably throw a fit over "invalid syntax". But if I wrte lik dis, u stll undrstand!
Now, some autistic people can remember thousands of bits of meaningless data, or square any number in their head. I am not one of them; those people are called savants and are extremely rare. I do, however, think somewhat like a computer. To me, the sentence "Go do your work" is very different from "Go do your schoolwork", though my mother insists they both mean the latter. Upon hearing the former, I started tidying my room, and was scolded for not doing my math.
I don't say "Stay there," I say "Stay within a 5-foot radius of your current location" (this is particularly useful for brothers, who tend to wander off to the video game aisle at Target).
When people ask how my day was, I have to stop and remember; they don't actually want to hear all about it. I prefer concrete language, and well-defined terms; say what you mean. A good test is to ask yourself: "If I ran this through Google Translate, would it still mean what I want it to?"
Neurotypicals, your assignment this week is to think logically. Don't assume anything. You will find a lot of unknowns, but that's to be expected. And remember, you can pretend to be a computer, but a computer can't pretend to be you! (at least, not yet…)

Coming Out of the Closet with Prosopagnosia

Happy 2013!

And, as per my New Year's resolution…I am "coming out of the closet". No, not that way…

I have prosopagnosia.

More colloquially known as 'face blindness' (but I prefer the scientific term), this odd neurological problem can be acquired or congenital. It's exactly what it sounds like; a difficulty in recognizing faces–the "usual way". (I'll get into the "unusual way" later.) I won't go into much detail (because other people can explain it much better, and I don't know that much detail), but this is a problem with a specific area of the brain–yes, there is a dedicated face-recognition part of your brain–and in prosopagnosia, it doesn't work so well. Like autism, this can be thought of as a spectrum disorder. At the top are the "superrecognizers", who are far better than average at remembering and recognizing faces. At the bottom are the most severe prosopagnosics, who may not be able to recognize themselves in the mirror. I am somewhere in the lower middle, closer to the bottom than the top.

Now, I said that about the "unusual way"…because I can recognize people, just with different methods. I remember voices (an almost foolproof method, unless they're not talking), and I find patterns. For example, my speech therapist wears large, ornate necklaces. This is especially good to know because she sometimes switches between curly and straight hair, and seems to have a near-infinite variety of clothing. One of my friends always has her hair in a ponytail. My brother is usually wearing something red (and even if he isn't, I know what all his clothes look like).

The other method is context. At Japanese class, I expect to see the Japanese teacher, and the other college students. I wouldn't expect to see someone from class at the library, and would most likely be perplexed if they greeted me there. It's when things fall out of context that I have problems…who's in this photo? Who is this random lady talking to me at the grocery store? Is that person at our door a solicitor? Or our neighbor?

(My mother, on the other hand, seems to always be encountering friends in the most unexpected places–at the library, while grocery shopping…I don't understand how she does it. Of course, she doesn't understand how I conclude that a couple boys I know look like Justin Bieber…apparently they don't, "and they don't look like twins, either!" Well, that's what she says; I've been using a combination of their names to address them both, since I can't tell them apart.)

Well, you'd think this is a serious problem (and it is, I believe, far worse for those with acquired prosopagnosia), but I have found one advantage to this "disorder". My mother notices faces, emotion and tone of voice. I notice other things, and quite possibly more things, more patterns, because I have to compensate. Like the blind man who can echolocate*, (though I'm far less impressive than him), one thing doesn't work; other things work better.

*I'm not making this up, Google it!

The Mentally Different

I am not "special needs". I am mentally different.

The term "special needs" is, to me, a bit absurd. Taken literally, you could say everyone has special needs. Everyone has some kind of problem. And then there are the negative connotations. Nobody wants to be "special needs", though using the literal definition, everyone is!

The third complaint I have with this word is that it's too generic. "Special needs" lumps the blind with the deaf, with the physically disabled, the mentally disabled, and what I think of as the mentally different. "Special needs" encompasses people in wheelchairs, people with brain injuries, Einstein, sociopaths, and basically anyone who doesn't fit into the definition of normal. It's one of those umbrella terms that simultaneously means almost everything, and therefore almost nothing.

There is only one definition for mentally different.*

The mentally different (according to me), are those on the autism spectrum. Note the lack of positive or negative connotation; we're not the mentally disturbed, or gifted, just different. Everyone has "special needs", and we are no exception. But we also have special abilities. Positive and negative cancel, and we're left with a neutral term; mentally different.**

I am not disabled. I am different.

*Technically, everyone is unique and therefore mentally different (in the literal sense) but don't be a literalist; it can get annoying.

**This term applies especially to those with Asperger's Syndrome or high-functioning autism.

Internet Communication Reduces Misunderstandings!

Breaking News: Internet Communication Reduces Misunderstandings!

No, that's not a real headline.

Most people believe the Internet increases misunderstandings, unintentional offenses, and other social mistakes.

But I disagree.

The real world is practically infested (my favorite word) with opportunities for confusion. You can send the wrong message so many ways…the way you sit, the way you stand, your tone, your face, your hands–everything can become an offense.

The digital world, on the other hand, is much simpler: Communication is reduced to text, and occasionally a faceless, nameless voice coming out of a speaker.

One would think this would increase problems, but I think it reduces them. For example, on the Steam Community forums (computer gamers discuss games there), there are very few misunderstandings. There are plenty of arguments, trolls and other Internet phenomena, but for the most part, everyone understands each other's intentions pretty well.

I've been 'researching' (read: reading and occasionally posting on) the forums for about a month now, and have figured out why: The users have invented their own 'internet dialect,' mostly derived from texting abbreviations and BBCode. For example, the end tag /rant, while not an actual piece of code, prevents readers from taking offense at the crazy rant you posted with humorous intent. Smileys help convey your intentions–you might add a :p or a ;) to show you're not being completely serious. And if you don't have the right smiley, you can fall back on the code and type something like :overworked: to represent an overworked face.* You could write something like "You're right! Alien mind control is going to bring about the apocalypse! :crazy:", and instead of writing you off as a nutcase, people laugh at your silliness.

I haven't 'researched' other forums much, but the ones I do look at all have some version of Internet Dialect. The codes are slightly different, but it's the same idea. And speaking of ideas…

Yesterday, I accidentally offended my dad with a poorly written email. He got very upset and wrote an offended (and offensive) reply back! I don't think it would have happened if I had ended with a /rant tag, or a :p (or both.) What if the Internetters united to create a standard code? Everyone would learn it, use it in forums, email and chat, and Internet-related misunderstandings would be virtually eliminated! It could even make its way into spoken language (grammarians and English teachers would have a collective fit.)

Yes, I'm getting into nutty scifi ideas here, but it could happen…

*To be completely accurate, you have to put /noparse tags (which prevent the plaintext inside from converting into rich text) around this one, because the :o converts to an 'embarrassed' smiley.

Alter Ego 1: The AI

I am hiding in plain sight, without safety glasses, a bucket on my head or a box. I am not hiding under a table, or cocooned in a blanket, or protected by Mother. I am walking alone, unprotected, and yet I feel I am perfectly safe.

I am hiding in my mind.

You would not be able to tell, but I am not me today. I am one of my alter egos: AI-#15837, an artificial intelligence downloaded into a human body. '15837' is not afraid to talk to the sandwich deli man, ask for help finding something at the library, or even answer a stranger's question. She will not hide from unexpected noises, though she may start muttering about server errors. In keeping with her nature, she cannot process logical paradoxes except by announcing an error. But she can interact with other people without making too many social mistakes.

Today, I am her. I still answer to my real name; something I would never do three years ago. I look the same. I remember to avoid speaking in my computer-voice, and very likely nobody can tell. The difference is in processing. As me, I do not always stick to my social programs. '15837' does not follow them exactly, but she is programmed to be like a neurotypical, and avoids the sudden topic changes to headcrabs, or the invisible Klingon warbird parked in our driveway…etc. She does not talk unnecessarily (to lessen the chance of social mistakes), but she can engage in conversation. Basically, I am almost mimicking a neurotypical, but in a much more interesting way. Who wants to be like a normal person? I wouldn't be able to imitate a normal person. But I can, and I would rather be, an AI.

Programming Myself

I'm learning computer programming. So far, I know how to make a bug and three kinds of errors. The problem, I've determined, is that I'm not used to writing programs with proper syntax, meant to be understood by a real computer. Up until now, I have only made programs for myself. These take the form of scribbled flowcharts, if they're written down at all, which tell what to do in social situations. They are written in the simplified computer-language found in Scratch (game programming), or AppleScript.

I have several of these; one for starting a conversation, one for asking a store employee a question, etc… I do not carry them with me on paper, but in my mind. If I could, I would keep them on my clipboard and always have them at hand, but someone would certainly find them. At the moment I write this, nobody but me knows about my social programs, though my family will find out shortly when I post this post.

But why?

That, I'm sure, is the question every neurotypical will be asking. How can these complicated flowcharts, loops and if-else statements be the easiest way to learn?

Well, the truth is, I don't really know. Maybe it's because I think like a computer, although I'm not sure if I do. How can I know what the computer thinks? Or maybe because computer-language is the most concrete way of writing something that is not concrete at all. I asked my pragmatic therapist for some hard-and-fast rules on social interaction, but she couldn't come up with one. I couldn't either. Nothing is always appropriate (or inappropriate), but that's why I have different programs for different situations. It works most of the time, and that's better than saying whatever comes to mind, which hardly ever works. This idea is definitely a keeper.

Look behind you!

Look behind you!
Did you look? Probably not. But I did. I'm always looking behind, around, up, down; everywhere! You never know what could be sneaking up behind you. Probably nothing. But maybe…something.
I'm not paranoid, and I've never been attacked from behind. But it could happen. Of course, a piano could fall from an airplane and smash you as you walk down the street. I know it's very unlikely that a malevolent being could be sneaking up behind me…but I just checked anyway. You never know.

The world is a dangerous place; one where people can pop out and greet you unexpectedly, cars honk in your face for no apparent reason, and everything merits watching. It's unpredictable. Anything could happen. Unknown danger lurks in corners, in other people, and, yes, behind. This is the same world you neurotypicals live in, but seen from the perspective of one who is mentally different. Would I trade my perspective for yours? Maybe.

And yet, this dangerous world is usually tolerable, and, sometimes, wonderful. Places I am very familiar with are much safer (our house, the Co-op grocery store, the park where the homeschoolers' park day is)… Other places we visit less frequently are considered more hazardous, and completely unknown, new places are outright dangerous. Except for one exception: Outdoor places are always relatively safe. Yes, I know, there are wild animals and rattlesnakes, but there's something everywhere.  And even in safe places, I'm still watching. Caution is important, and being aware of my surroundings helps me notice things other people don't. My mother never notices signs that say 'Don't touch!', or 'This is not an exit' or 'Restrooms that way', but I do. Maybe I wouldn't trade after all.

Correcting Grammatical Errors (and other weird things I do)

Before I begin my post, I would like to apologize for not posting in a while: Sorry! We've been unimaginably busy with schoolwork, a camping trip, and various other departures from our normal routine. It's been Chaos Week for the last month, and I'm prefectly aware of the incongruity in that sentence.

I like saying absurd things –"They're identical except for the differences"– and writing odd things. I also tend to mispronounce words; usually by accident, but sometimes on purpose. For example, I am determined to say queue as "kweh-weh", because that's how it's spelled. If the dictionary writers wanted it pronounced "cue", they shouldn't have put in all those extra letters! And the word wrong – it's spelled wrong. I used to pronounce it wrong (incorrectly enunciating the 'w') – until I became distracted with other, more egregious violations of common sense in spelling. Like cello, which, when written, has always reminded me of an abbreviation for cellophane.

And refrigerator, which does not have a 'd' in it. For some reason, fridge does. Who thought that one up? You don't pronounce a 'd' in either word. All it does is contribute to poor spelling! Poor spelling is the bane of my existence! (Isn't that a dramatic sentence?)

And on the topic of poor spelling, that's another 'thing' I do – correct everything. If I'm walking through Trader Joe's and I see a misspelled sign, I stop, stare at it dramatically, and run off to notify the closest employee, usually an innocent guy stocking the shelves. I know he probably didn't do it, but he might know who did. And if it's especially catastrophic – say, a banner posted right above the door with an unneeded apostrophe, I might walk straight up to the manager and announce: "Did you know your sign is wrong?"

I have done this several times at a nearby Gelsons' supermarket, where a large, expensive and permanent sign about the farms their lettuce grows on has the word mountainous spelled mountaineous. Don't professional sign makers use spellcheck?

The only places exempt from these corrections are stores such as the Japanese market we often go to. Their signs probably make sense in Japanese, but when they get run through Google Translate, weird things start popping up. "Expired foods sale!" (I think that means "day-old bakery items".) "Sale: Leafy pie!" (Is that some sort of cookie? For some reason, sandwich cookies are referred to as 'pie' by Japanese stores.)

Everywhere else, though – if I've caught a misspelling or a grammatical error, they're going to know. Isn't it better to be corrected than appear stupid in front of thousands of customers?

But what does this have to do with being mentally different? (Do you like that euphemism? It's better than "special needs"…)

Well, when was the last time you saw a poorly written sign? Did you go point it out to the store's employees? Maybe you did; more likely you just went on with your day. I don't do that. The first time I see it I point it out, and if it's not fixed when we're back next week, I point it out again! "Excuse me, but that sign says "Pre-Christmas Sale" and it's January…" "Quintessence is spelled with an 'i' and you have it with an 'e'!" "Excuse me Mr. Store Manager Guy, but did you know your employees are abusing innocent apostrophes?"

If I was that store manager, I would want to know!

The Illusion of Normalcy-Part 2

March 11

The house is free of offensive signs, which I have filed away to put up later. The bathrooms are habitable and the yard is unusually neat. We've cleaned the car, and every Internet meme on every mirror has been erased. A vase of lemons stands on the buffet where a pile of art supplies used to be, and I've hidden the paper 'Swiss cheese on a spring'. Our house is normal…but are we?
I threaten my brother with doom if he quotes any video game characters. I go through my clothes, pushing my furry yellow Pikachu pajamas and home-decorated shirts to the back shelf. I should really search my brother's drawers and hide all his ratty sweatpants and chocolate smoothie-stained shirts, but he'd probably find them.

What else is wrong?

I remove a giant drawing of Jigglypuff from my brother's room and hide it in his closet. My list of hygiene behaviors is rolled up with the blank papers–I hope I don't forget to brush my hair. I've already filed away the Sonic the Hedgehog comic I was drawing, removed the sign above my door that says LAIR and erased the swear word from my whiteboard. I make a list of all the things to not perseverate about, and a list for my brother as well: Do NOT leave your room without pants! Do NOT recite the DirectTV commercial! And in large letters at the bottom: ABSOLUTELY NO CALLING ME A POTATO!!

March 13

So far, so good. No untoward signs of weirdness have popped up since Grandpa arrived. My room has, miraculously, stayed clean for five days. My brother has not quoted a single video game character. Every time I walk into the dining room, I'm tempted to write "COMBUSTIBLE LEMONS!" with a whiteboard marker on the glass vase full of lemons. But I'm not going to.
That afternoon, Mother replaces the lemons with Euphorbia flowers. The Euphorbia plant has toxic sap, and I imagine how funny it would be to put my generic 'POISON THING' sign behind it. I don't, but I do warn Grandpa about how the milky sap causes blisters if you get it on your skin.
Our plans to build a cardboard-and-packaging-foam spiky crusher (a hybrid of those found in Sonic the Hedgehog, Mario and Portal), are on hold, though I'm gathering materials. I think someone threw out my collection of squishy foam…
No blatant weirdness has manifested yet. But Grandpa is staying for almost a week. Can we keep it up?

The Illusion of Normalcy- Part 1

"Yikes!" I announce while updating iCal. I have been looking at the events in the next two weeks, and just realized how soon my grandpa is visiting! And he's going to stay at our house…double yikes!
I look around my room. Clothing and books litter the floor. Messy, but not unusual. The door is covered in signage: "Beware of autistic person!" "No Internet memes!". Oh, dear…A large sign on the wall helps me remember to do things like shower and zip my pants. Definitely abnormal.

I walk out into the hallway. Our floor-to-ceiling mirror is decorated with lists of homophones and, in giant letters: "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US". A 1up mushroom and a Piranha Plant lurk next to a monkey sticker. I think it's interesting. Mother thinks we'd better clean it up. (She's probably right.)

I continue my tour of our house, searching for the odd and abnormal things we'll have to remove or hide. A list of fats is taped to the refrigerator–the unhealthy saturated fats are marked with a skull and crossbones.  Every bathroom mirror reads: "Public service announcement: always check the toilet for giant sewer rats!". A paper Swiss cheese on a spring is stuck to our magnet board. The door to the laundry room bears a warning: "Poisonous gases!" Everywhere there are sesquipedalian announcements about preventing ant invasions. A giant drawing of Jigglypuff is magnetized to my brother's dartboard. In several places, I have carefully written "THE CAKE IS A LIE" with a dry-erase marker, just as it appeared in Portal.
Just to clarify matters, our house is not a dump. My mother worked very hard to make it aesthetically pleasing, and kindly did not protest when I put a sign reading "LAIR" above my door, and we decorated the hallway with a life-size cardboard Mewtwo.

Before Grandpa comes, I imagine, we will go on a Weirdness Hunt, tracking down the unusual signage and wiping the mirrors clean. For a few weeks, our house will look like a normal family lives in it. Then, slowly, the weirdness will reappear. I will save the signs we remove and tape them back up after Grandpa leaves. My brother will decorate the mirror again. Maybe I'll decorate my door with Portal-style warning signs–in case you can't tell, Portal and Portal 2 is my newest temporary perseveration.

Worried about Worrying

I'm worried about plumbing problems. I'm also worried about car accidents. And Formosan Subterranean Termites, which are spreading across the US, can never be fully eradicated once they move in and are capable of wrecking a house in 3 months. (Now that you've read that, you're probably worried about them too.)
Just a few of my recent worries include: What if an earthquake happens while I'm in the kitchen and a stack of plates falls out of the cabinet and kills me? What if the light switch catches fire? What if a giant spark leaps out of the electrical outlet? What if there's a gas leak? I have so many worries, I'm worried I worry too much and will get an anxiety disorder!
And I used to have even more worries, such as: 'What if a murderer murders someone in the yard?' and 'What if the door flies off the dishwasher while it's running and soap floods the kitchen?' Eventually those vanished when my parents explained how ridiculous they were.*

People say worrying doesn't solve anything, but I think it does…in some cases. If you worry about clogged plumbing, you'll avoid dropping hair in the toilet, averting an expensive disaster. But if you're worried about alien invasion…that probably won't help you in life. (In fact, worrying about aliens could mark you as a nutcase.) The conclusion: Rational worries are good as long as you don't have too many. And don't worry about aliens; they might be friendly.


*I try to worry only about real dangers, but in the absence of a contradiction from a more reliable source, I accepted "facts" such as "If you come upon a dead body unexpectedly you'll go insane!". Misinformation creates irrational worries; information corrects them.

The 'Atypical Look'

Last weekend my mother decided she needed a pair of sandals to match her new purse. So she went out to the mall…and took me along. She said I needed new sandals too (and if you ask her, I also need new shirts and pants, a new pair of boots, a cute skirt…everything).
We entered through Nordstrom's, hoping to avoid the mall; but, failing to find acceptable sandals, Mother decided to look elsewhere.
Out in the mall, Mother darted off into various stores, dragging me along to point out clothes she wished I would wear. "You'd look so cute if I dressed you!" she tells me. "You should wear stuff like this!"
Why? I think. I like my clothes. They all match each other so it's easy to get dressed.
"You need to buy new shirts!" she exclaims. "Yours are all worn out!"


My mother is not a shopaholic; in fact, we rarely go shopping. She just wants me to look good. The problem: I think I look fine.
Some of my shirts are speckled with tiny holes; the result of hungry silverfish and crickets, but none have the large chocolate-smoothie stains my brother gets everywhere. And aren't worn-out pants in style? Most of my clothes are different shades of blue, but that means I don't have to worry about matching…though apparently I dress like a middle-aged office worker, all in plain shirts and navy or brown pants. It keeps things simple. Albert Einstein had 5 identical suits because he was too busy discovering relativity to think about clothes.

I know I don't dress like other teenagers, but I am completely unbothered by that fact. I prefer not to wear things like those shirts that fall off one shoulder, which reminds me of cavemen, or ripped skinny jeans. It takes a lot of thought to dress that way and I already have too much to think about. If my mother didn't remind me, I would forget to comb my hair or zip my pants. I'm like the absent-minded professor…except I'm not absent-minded. I remember everyone's phone numbers and how to spell pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, which is spelled exactly how it sounds. Also, I'm not a professor.