trichotillomania or alopecia or scabies (oh-my)

          "Good stuff back?  Good?"

          "Nah.  Tray full-a pumpkin bread.  That'z zit."

          "Paws.  How many brightcycles has it been GerAld?  Feels like more than two full paws!"

          "RanDal, dere'z corn-grease in-a cage up here.  Also, the tallones up-next-over-there still haz thiztle seedz.  But GerAld don mind sweet bread here.  Not like da-normal brown stuff.  Kind-a niz.  Muz-a gave tithe thiz mornin cauze not hard yet."

          "Yea.  Saw tallone with colors ontop placing the tithe two naps ago.  Went down to mine because sand-colored-quiet-predator was out at the same time.  Then forgot.  Yea."

          "Smell anythin down low?  Whoah.  Da-spook goin on wid your tail RanDal!  You tryin-a look zactly like GerAld?"

          "Oh this?  Yea.  Well.  No.  RahNee said.  After over visiting yours after last-longsleep.  RahNee especially appreciated how LouAnn has used all GerAld's tailshed as lining.  Said it was shit-hole amazing how much warmer and more comfortable Ger-Ann's is.  So.  RahNee pulled some of RanDal's.  To line Ran-Nee's.  Oh."

          "Old-silent-owlz up-da-moonz-azz dat muz-a hurt!  Mine fallz out on itz own.  Know all bout dat?  Right RanDal?  Bout all my rattailz GerAld hairz?"

          "Yea.  Well.  No.  LouAnn told RahNee.  Last greencycle.  Tailshed runs in GerAld kin, yea."

          "That'z waz laz-greencyclez story.  Now.  But, fore last bright moon.  Went spookin.  Round-acroz danger-stone river.  Near the widewater crossin?"

          "Wow.  Scary.  Never been that far.  Scary-wow, wow."

          "Saw DelMar wid samez tailshedz."

          "Thought DelMar sqasked by machine on rocky-stone river.  Cackel-black-owl food.  Thought?"

          "Dat waz DalMar.  Iz not Dall.  Dell.  DelMar?"

          "Yea.  Well.  No.  New name.  Yea."

          "DelMar'z no kin of GerAld.  DelMar iz tuftearz-kin.  Not obviouz.  Have-ta look close.  Now.  DelMar iz startin kin with ShaLoo.  RanDal knowz bout ShaLoo?  RanDal liztenin?"

          "Yea.  Well.  No.  Hear loud-black-clumx-predator.  Claws on wall.  Might need to climb.  If tall one opens wall.  Listen.  Know little about ShaLoo from other-talk.  Yea."

          "ShaLoo haz bezt tailhair lined kin den.  Ever.  Bezt bezt.  Get me?"

          "Yea.  Well.  No.  You nap with DelMar in, in Del-Loo?  Yea?"

          "No!  Shitz-bath RanDal.  Lizten.  Two greencyclez back.  GerAld waz spookin and ShaLoo wanted ta spook.  GerAld spent almoz entire floodz-cycle in ShaLoo'z.  Next moon I lose a patch of tailhair.  Also.  DelMar never had tailshed before now.  And he tells me..."

          "Oh.  ShaLoo is giving it away.  Oh."

          "Atz right.  RanDal?  Maybez not tell RahNee?  LouAnn might chaze me outta the much warmer and more comfortable tailshed-lined Ger-Ann's.  Maybe wait til coldcyclez overz an mudcyclez started ta tellz RahNee?"

          "Sure.  One condition.  Nap together for a few paws, until a patch falls out of mine.  The old three-hole-skunk-burrow lost smell but is much-still-axoided, sure."

          "Whatz da fox-bat-spook ..?!"

          "Nap GerAld.  Not spook.  RanDal and GerAld are kin.  Does RanDal remember GarAnn's sister was RayDol's nan?  Remember RanDal?  Nap."

          "Who knowz kin back seven nanz?"

          "RahNee knows kin back twenty nanz.  RahNee talks.  RanDal listens.  Want to start kin with RahNee and never spook again.  Tailshed is a prize RahNee will cherish.  No more plucking pain for RanDal and RanNee's will be warm and comfy."

          "Okz.  Napz it iz, cuzin RanDal, GerAld'z rattailed kin.  Napz it iz.  And.  GerAld'z gonna borrow comfy from RanDal.  Warm and comfy.  Nize."


more fiction storiez connected with photoz:
  Hue, Sue, and SF Heros
   
⠀⠀⠀⠀ 1.3.20 0 🖉 comment
⠀⠀⠀⠀

Haiku 装飾 舗装 5-7-5 俳句 Asfault Ernate






snow on asphalt – trees
pertness – nude ’tween neck and knees
fingers – rule of threes










image excerpt by Craig Morey at MoreyStudio
⠀⠀⠀⠀ 28.2.20 0 🖉 comment
⠀⠀⠀⠀ , ,

                              All the Albans



o that quiet closeout dimming pretty wonderful February day
as we carefully creep, using don’t-fall-shins, in St Albans Bay

not a-top the crack-solid homonymous bay of Lake Champlain
but on its shore in the village bafflingly bearing its samename

as we slush thru a concentrated current of babypoo sewer gas
I must wonder why St Albans Town surrounds with all its mass

fools following foolish footsteps — severe imagination-dearth
or, did Albans Town gouge Albans City from mid-self in mirth

Albans:  Point, Bays, Shire, Town, City & English protomartyr
lost their mind and their head (summer add a boating harbor)

guillotine blade St Albans Town, jurisd-enclave St Albans City
taxservice puzzle-zones: could smell a source of winter shitty



other Vermont uniquenesses:
⠀⠀⠀⠀ 26.2.20 0 🖉 comment
⠀⠀⠀⠀ ,

Haiku ほ 5-7-5 俳句 HO




Francis "Freak" Storm knocks
HO outta HOTEL, denting
hzr snowplow slightly
⠀⠀⠀⠀ 25.2.20 0 🖉 comment
⠀⠀⠀⠀ , ,

ÔSTARA's Mailbox

⠀⠀⠀⠀ 22.2.20 0 🖉 comment
⠀⠀⠀⠀ , ,

modicum of self-awareness


          Normal is everyone.

          NEFND is actively not recruiting.

          Consider yourself a nonmember of the nonexistent fellowship of the neurodiverse?  Then, I have your nonmembership card.  Tell me where to send it.

           When you pushed the button to power the object, which you are currently looking at, you were thinking concretely.  This is me—as writer—drawing attention to the fact that you—as reader—are touching tangible objects (even if you are floating in space's micro-gravity, without clothing, listening to a galactic podcast of these words, your entire body is touching the nitrogen-oxygen compound, which you are breathing in).  The objects you are touching exist.  Time is passing as you read.  All this is your individual empirical reality.

          (Even if someone ink-on-paper-ized this essay for an unfortunate someone with no electric-power)—everyone's brain gathers information from their senses.  All empirical knowledge is gained from our senses.  Time may pass at different speeds for different people (a scientific fact for the hypothetical person in space compared to the hypothetical person reading by candlelight) but that fact is not empirical.  That fact is an abstract concept.

          If you can think abstractly, when you were reading the two previous parenthetical phrases (which both began with the word even) you briefly pictured—in your mind’s eye—a naked person floating in space, breathing Nitrox, and a person on earth reading by candlelight.

          If your mind’s eye did not engage—there may be another way to determine if you are capable of abstract thought. 

          Think about what makes up the person who is you.  Consider your past thoughts and actions as well as your plans for your future self.  If what you visibly 'look like' to others / in a mirror / on social media, intrudes into your thoughts, push those images into the background.  Where do "you fit" into the following characteristics:
  • What are some of your personal values?  How important are they?  List five in order of importance. 
    • Specifically:  If you value honesty in yourself (and others) how often do you catch yourself being dishonest?  Do you force yourself to tell hard truths or do you slip into easy white lies?  Do you apologize when you have been untruthful or do you find excuses for continuing to be dishonest? 
    • Some examples of values:  trustworthiness, work ethic, punctuality, empathy, spacial-awareness, quality of your listening and observing, health awareness, spend-thriftiness, forthrightness, selfishness vs selflessness, mettle. 
  • Think about a few pass-times or hobbies which are important to you.  Do you set time aside for yourself and the mental/physical endeavors you enjoy or are you a "people pleaser" who prefers to participate in the pass-times of others?  Are there any changes you might prefer to make when considering your current dynamic? 
  • Are you happy?  Content?  What is your well-being most connected to or influenced by? (e.g. wealth, education, love, creativity, career, self-awareness, geographic location)
    • What is it about yourself that most pleases you?
    • When / where / with whom are you most content? 
    • What (within your control) could you change to improve your situation?
  • Future planning plays how important a role to your present self?
    • How often have you accomplished previous plans you made?
    • If you think planning for your future is important, but rarely accomplished previous plans, are you Ok with this conflict between desire and outcome?  Is there something you could do to alter this pattern of behavior? 
  • What habit(s) or routine(s) do you least admire in yourself?
    • Examples:  procrastination, addiction, ability/inability to "say no", ability/inability to confront or accept confrontation, openness to praise and criticism, laziness, gluttony. 
          Imagine each of your answers as fitting into their own circle.  Each circle will have a different size depending on how important they are to you (someone who mountain bikes and skis and reads books and loves foreign films and enjoys to travel will have a much larger circle for their pass-time characteristic than someone who watches TV after work and sleeps late on weekends [both may be equally content]).  Imagine all the circles on top of each other—a Venn-diagram of "who you are in your own mind."  Add more circles (I only listed five characteristics . . . there could be dozens).  

          In my previous article on Asperger's I stated, '...NEFND only requests its nonmembers strive to possess a modicum of self-awareness...',  By considering the above characteristics you have not only thought abstractly about yourself, you began the process of becoming self-aware.  The next step involves focusing on details.

          Everyone's characteristics (like in my analogy of a Venn-diagram) change when they are viewed as a whole—one on top of the other.  Some characteristics are completely covered by others (e.g. nobody knows your flavor of sexual fetish unless you share it).  Other characteristics are at-times hidden and other-times not-hidden because of timing and opportunity (the only people who know you suck at Karaoke are the other bar patrons).

          Your examination of the gestalt that is you requires a willingness to determine what part(s) of your behavior(s) could be causing friction with people around you (or, within yourself).  Improving your own well-being is not simple.  But the first step is becoming aware that you have the power to improve you.
          Have you decided that this is not something you need to do?  Then—two things—I am amazed you read this far, and ask you to consider this last question:  When someone says, “How're you?”  Do you think they want to hear what's going on in your head at that moment?  That they want to know about your headache?  They are really asking for you to talk about the strange dream you had this morning?  Or are you capable of realizing they are just doing that everyday-'merican-faux-polite thing and savvy enough to just answer with the expected: "Fine. How bout you?"

          Final point:  When a human resources employer asks you to, "Tell them a recent challenge that you have overcome," they do not want to hear another applicant explain their struggles with being a perfectionist; they are just trying to determine if you are self-aware.  They want to hire people who are open to criticism, can apologize when they make a mistake, and are capable of empathizing with co-workers.  Become self-aware.  Then your answer to that question can be a brief explanation on how you overcame that challenge.


more values and abstract thought observations:


⠀⠀⠀⠀ 18.2.20 0 🖉 comment
⠀⠀⠀⠀ , ,

NEFND


          In a prior article about my Asperger's traits I explain the impetus behind the design of the nefnd emblem.  At the risk of redundancy, the acronym NEFND—approximately the word for named or for committee in Icelandic (Íslenska)—only requests its nonmembers strive to possess a modicum of self-awareness, humor, and a functioning conscience.  There are millions of proud qualified-nonmembers; I am one.

          The nonexistent fellowship of the neurodiverse (NEFND) recommends—to qualified and unqualified alike—that the engendered behaviors, resulting from the differently-wired neurons of qualified-nonmembers, be considered prima facie routinely accepted.  Normal is everyone.  Qualified-nonmembers should not be coerced to conform to the behaviors of unqualified-nonmembers, nor should attempts be made to fix, repair, or cure their (our) non-pathological behaviors.

          At the risk of being crudely re-redundant:  normal is everyone.  Nefnd is actively not recruiting.  If you consider yourself a nonmember, you are.  Non-membership cards are a cut-paste-print away (albeit, the clear plastic 2.5 inch squares will require you to contact me - I am giving them away - I will mail you one).
 
more nefnd details:

 
⠀⠀⠀⠀ 12.2.20 0 🖉 comment
⠀⠀⠀⠀ , , , ,

fanart



my idiom du jour : off beaten path – local hidden gem
Rec Area DeForge : off river road – nearby an old dam
thine idiot (yours) : part match DeForge – haw an hem
cause now I’m tore : will it lose – now empty of 'them'
je ne sais quality-lore : with an over-full tiny lot – when
off⇡path⇣app explore : Bolton Falls – a picnic idyllic glen
distant from : Bolton VT – an' Duxbury dislikes this poem
from last October : I share – my best friend's leaf spectrum

other seasonal art-poems
 Haiku 小道 5-7-5 俳句 Path
hey there below | moiaq ajayf hau
 D’Abord Stalactite de Glace
 Winterfall


⠀⠀⠀⠀ 11.2.20 0 🖉 comment
⠀⠀⠀⠀ , ,

Refusing Eye Contact, Cecil O. Zonkey (12 yrs old in 2020)

⠀⠀⠀⠀ 10.2.20 0 🖉 comment
⠀⠀⠀⠀ ,

anger avalanche (remembered and explained)

          In 1983, I received orders from the US Army.  I was to be stationed the entire next year in South Korea, separated from my then-wife and infant son.  My wife and I decided to find an apartment for the two of them in my home town, where she could work during my year overseas.  Fortuitously (I thought when I learned of it) my step-father and mother were planning an upcoming two-week vacation without my 15 year-old half-sister (because she'd be in school).  I asked my mother if my immediate family could stay in their guest room during that vacation, in order to apartment hunt (I assumed they would welcome an adult and car for errands and emergencies).  

          "No," I was told. "Your sister has been promised unsupervised-use of the house.  Her boyfriend has a car."

          Wow.  Unexpected financial stress (paying for a motel in my hometown while four bedrooms sit empty in my family's house) combined with parental favoritism (always visible, rarely this overt) and jealousy (rarely an unsupervised hour when I was in high school...but she's permitted a fortnight) became anger.  Sticky anger.

          Over the next several years I didn't reply to the handful of letters sent by my mother or step-father—all I recall in the letters was their ruminations on my lack of religion and their lack of an apology.  During those years I divorced my then-wife, my sons were adopted by her second husband, I married a Korean woman, and completed a few more overseas and stateside tours.  Eventually (six years later, in 1989) I wrote my mother and step-father and asked to visit and introduce my second-wife to them.

          Using racist verbiage, the gist of my mother's answer:  'You are welcome.  She is not'.

          Which caused my anger to avalanche.

          Many years later (in the 1990s) after realizing my mother's bigotry only explained the last few years of our estrangement, I chuckled-to-myself over the memory of that long-forgotten sticky anger (from 1983) and pondered how those years may have been different if I hadn't stopped communicating with them.

          Had I only been angry because my immediate family member(s) were never welcome in my parents home?  Did I hold my anger because my mother and step-father never apologized?  Would one have occurred without the other?  If I'd never expressed anger and never expected apologies, would those decades have been estrangement-less?

          Is the party who causes someone else to be angry always responsible for an apology?  Is someone else getting angry at you sufficient reason to be angry back?  If so, who should apologize first?  How do insincere apologies fit-in here?  Does just blurting the word 'sorry' (like a bed-wetting preschooler) ever suffice for anything more serious than accidentally stepping on someone's toes?  If not (most have a keen eye for hollow apologies) how does one clearly and concisely communicate one's contrition?  If one is not sorry for feeling anger at the above described decades-long series of being treated terribly by a parent, as I was, what is the fix?     

          Over the decades I've come to realize that, for my mother, it's always others who are unreasonable and always those same others who express unwarranted anger—while she never has reason for apologies.

          Which has taught me I'm not so much my mother's son—I can, and do, say I'm sorry.

          I wrote the above paragraphs of this essay in 2010.  I was unaware what a covert-vulnerable narcissist was at that time.  As a teenager, I knew my younger sister was a classic narcissist, but did not know covert narcissism existed nor that my mother had all the traits of a covert narcissist my entire life.

          When someone asks me to explain "the benefit of knowing psychiatric labels" I tell this story.  Knowing that my mother's behavior can be objectively detailed—as it fluctuated over the years between that of an un-diagnosed sociopath (glib charm, need to control, no conscience) and an un-diagnosed narcissist (no empathy, no remorse, manipulative, pathological liar)—removes my response to her behaviors from the equation.  "Bad parent" explains nothing; "my mother is a narcissistic-sociopath" fills in all the blanks.  It also provides insight as to why we have been on-and-off estranged for 40+ years: when I would point out her traits, she would terminate contact until enough years would pass that I would re-initiate contact and begin the cycle over.  That ended when I "discovered" her mental disorder.

          I can feel maudlin or morose when I see, or hear about, people enjoying the company of their extended family—it's a form of envy; a recognition of something missing in my life.  But, then I focus on the decades of intentionally non-harmonious behavior which was always on theatrical display, by every one of my blood relatives, and smile in recognition that it's all behind me.

          Because the answer to all the rhetorical questions I posed to myself (above, ten years ago) is that none of it was ever my fault; her fake anger and constant lies were all acts of manipulation.

          Someone with no conscience and no empathy can never "miss" the bonding of extended family any more than the computer I am typing on misses me when I turn it off.  My mother has never thought about any of her family members when they are not either sitting in front of her (because they came to visit her, never her-them) or on the other end of a phone (because they called her, never her-them).   If she ever initiated contact, it was with hate-filled chaotic manipulation as her goal.  Learning how her mind works effectively de-fanged and de-clawed the paper tiger.      

          To sorrow I bade good-morrow, and thought to leave her far away behind; but cheerily, cheerily, she loves me dearly...she is so constant to me, and so kind. — John Keats
⠀⠀⠀⠀ 7.2.20 0 🖉 comment
⠀⠀⠀⠀ , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)