After the attempt to use a writing log to maintain my productivity failed, I’ve been feeling defeated. It’s hard to bounce back once I’m off track and this summer has been particularly frustrating after I had tried to reestablish a writing routine. If I managed to write an hour or…
The Autistic Me
Podcast Episode 0065; Season 04, Episode 29; June 1, 2021 Throughout the experience of pandemic parenting, I held onto the hope for productivity. However, my focus quickly shifted from my creative works to educating my daughters and their needs have remained my primary concern. As the pandemic seems to be waning,…
Susan and I have made three major moves to reset our lives, taking us from California to Minnesota to Pennsylvania… and, finally, to Texas. We moved to Texas expecting that I’d teach high school technology and business courses. The girls would have a fresh start at a new school. Best…
Podcast Episode 0064; Season 04, Episode 28; May 18, 2021 Our daughters and I have had a fair number of neuropsych assessments. The girls both have a list of official diagnostic labels. The three of us have ADHD in common. On her ninth birthday, we began yet another neuro-psychological assessment for Leigh, our eldest…
My work has to be perfect. My grades need to be excellent. I dislike mistakes, especially my own. I am a perfectionist, and that’s not a good quality. Anyone trying to turn perfectionism into a positive isn’t really a perfectionist. I hate when people use “I’m a perfectionist” as the…
I used to consider software development one of the few careers, outside librarians and medical examiners, surely insulated from the extroverts too often in charge of human society. Then, along came various project management schemes that forced programmers to act like extroverts. This post discusses Agile software development project management…
Some of my coworkers and friends assume I like exercising. They know I’ve had gym memberships and that I exercise daily. I ride my exercise bike 16 to 20 miles most days, and sometimes 30 miles. The girls and I take a two- or three-mile walk twice a week. We…
Sock seams, shirt tags, tight watch bands, and high collars. These are a few of autistics least favorite things. The tag-less t-shirt wasn’t a new invention, since tags were added long after shirts were first made or sold, but I’m so glad they are the norm today. I cannot recall…
My grand plan to write daily fell apart on the night of April 18-19, after a losing battle with an online employment system used by a university. I spent three days preparing documents and then the HR system being used (Workday) choked while uploading my materials. The application was marked…
Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is an ineffective family of “therapies” with a dark, disturbing origin, which I’ve written about several times. Notice that ABA is not named Applied Behavior Therapy. It’s not what I’d consider therapy and it isn’t really presented to parents and caregivers as therapy. Mental health therapies help…