blogthing of randomness and Five Things
Because I'm trying to get into the habit of blogging regularly. Not that lj needs to hear my every thought, but because when AspiesOnline gets its stuff together, I'll be doing a blog there. So here's the bits and pieces of my day, I guess...
1) Glas (or more accurately, Glas' sister) got good news today. Her entry in the screenplay category of the Kay Snow writing contest took first. We celebrated by going to The Duke of Windsor. It's a train that's been refurbished into a pub/restaurant. We eat in the back of the caboose. It's right next to still-running railroad tracks, so sometimes a train will roar by the window, and it's got awesome decor and authenticness. Didn't get shepherd's pie this time, probably next time.
2) Of course, because we went out, we had to tape Sad Thursday, so tomorrow we'll watch that. Also tomorrow we need to watch Mental because it's an episode about an autistic girl. Girls are so under-represented, because we make up about a quarter of the people on the autism spectrum, so when someone autistic shows up on telly, it's always a boy.
3) I'm still talking about the Boosh on Jimmy Fallon. My poor family... luckily I've converted them all, if they weren't also fans, they'd be real sick of hearing about it. But I can't help myself. If, unlike me, you have some sembelance of a social life, a love life, even, think about the feeling you get from being around someone you love. That is the feeling the Boosh sets off in me. It triggers that part of my brain instead of the 'I like TV' part.
FIVE THINGS ABOUT GLAS THAT AREN'T TRUE
Okay, here is where I dispell commonly held misbeliefs about me.
1) GlasgowSmiles is British
California born and raised and still-residing-in. But because I grew up with British tv and literature, I tend to speak and spell in a distinctly un-American way. This is not just an Internet misconception, I get it in RL, too. Because I'm a master of dialects? Because I never did the pledge of allegiance in school? Because I actually know history? Maybe a little bit of all of those. I actually kind of didn't want to dispell this one, because I really enjoy being mistaken for a Brit. I think my soul is British...
2) GlasgowSmiles is a man
This one is pretty much just over the internets. It's because the email I almost always use was once a shared account, and for some reason it still says stuff from me is from 'David'. Although I have been told I (and I quote) "shop like a man". Okay, once I was mistaken for a man in RL, but it was hallowe'en and I had a false beard, so at the time I was flattered. I've done guy parts in theatre a couple of times, it's fun.
3) GlasgowSmiles is a lesbian
Obviously this belief is not held by the same people who think I'm a man. It's probably not held by very many people, since it doesn't take a long time of knowing me for people to learn about my love of hot man-on-man action... But because I don't just love the hotness of man-love, but also the social equality thing, one of my friends from theatre invited me to join the campus gay club. Now, I'm not the only straight friend who's been welcomed in, but because I didn't introduce myself by saying 'Oh by the way I'm straight', there's no way for people to tell unless it comes up. Also, for a long time, most of my friends were straight guys, so I had to get used to being able to frankly discuss whether or not certain girls were hot. Since I'm pretty comfortable with myself, I don't have a problem with it, and I'm pretty good at being one of the guys. This one's really not a problem unless one of the girls ever develops an interest in me, in which case I will have to awkwardly explain my sexual orientation. Well, most of the girls I already knew from theatre know. It may never actually come up, in which case, all is cool.
4) GlasgowSmiles is forty.
Or thereabouts. This one crops up online occasionally because I love old TV shows and have a sense of history, including recent history, so I can come off as having 'been there'. Unfortunately, this also crops up in RL. I am forever being mistaken for twice my age. One friend first thought I was middle aged, but the first time she saw me was in the theatre, and I was in old age makeup and white spray-on dye, so she was still taking me for younger than my character, and when she saw me out of makeup, she didn't make the same mistake. But other people think I'm old. If I'm with my dad and my mom's not with us, little old ladies in grocery stores ask if my husband can reach the top shelf for them. NO ONE EVER APOLOGIZES TO ME. If it's the thing with my dad, they say to him 'you should be flattered, you look so young', but they never apologise to me! If I'm with my sister (two years younger than me)/brother (six years younger) and someone mistakes me for the mom, still no apology. They'll say my sister 'looks so young!' (she does-- she gets upset about being mistaken for fifteen. I'd like to have a problem like that...). Or they'll just shrug like 'honest mistake'. No, sir, it is not! I am twenty four, and just once, I'd like someone to realize that.
5) GlasgowSmiles is a functioning member of society
You'd think I'd be pleased about this one. I mean, sure, of course it's nice to be mistaken for functioning, but sometimes the way people do it PISSES ME OFF. Okay, backstory: I have Asperger's Syndrome. Thanks largely to being involved in the theatre for years, I have gained the ability to 'pass', and to read facial expressions, because I learned them in a classroom setting. But people who are meeting me now, who didn't know me in middle school, when they learn that I'm on the autism spectrum, often say 'I couldn't tell! You seem so normal!', and I just want to scream. There is no 'face' of autism like there is with many other syndromes/disorders. And even if I didn't hate the word normal, I hate that it's just... It takes so much WORK. When I go out and speak about what it's like to be on the autism spectrum, and people have, like, Rain Man in mind and I seem like a 'normal' young woman, I understand how that's not what you think when you hear 'autism', but it takes a lot of effort for me to do that, to fake eye contact, to be in a crowd of people I might not know, to have to speak as myself instead of as a character in a play, to not 'look autistic', whatever that means. But being able to 'pass' for an afternoon's panel discussion is not the same as functioning in life, which I cannot do, but because I am so 'high-functioning', it is tremendously hard to get services. I wasn't diagnosed until after I was out of school, but there are kids who are less high-functioning than I was being told they're 'not autistic enough' for services, which is a denial of FAPE, but argh. Anyway.
That's me.
1) Glas (or more accurately, Glas' sister) got good news today. Her entry in the screenplay category of the Kay Snow writing contest took first. We celebrated by going to The Duke of Windsor. It's a train that's been refurbished into a pub/restaurant. We eat in the back of the caboose. It's right next to still-running railroad tracks, so sometimes a train will roar by the window, and it's got awesome decor and authenticness. Didn't get shepherd's pie this time, probably next time.
2) Of course, because we went out, we had to tape Sad Thursday, so tomorrow we'll watch that. Also tomorrow we need to watch Mental because it's an episode about an autistic girl. Girls are so under-represented, because we make up about a quarter of the people on the autism spectrum, so when someone autistic shows up on telly, it's always a boy.
3) I'm still talking about the Boosh on Jimmy Fallon. My poor family... luckily I've converted them all, if they weren't also fans, they'd be real sick of hearing about it. But I can't help myself. If, unlike me, you have some sembelance of a social life, a love life, even, think about the feeling you get from being around someone you love. That is the feeling the Boosh sets off in me. It triggers that part of my brain instead of the 'I like TV' part.
FIVE THINGS ABOUT GLAS THAT AREN'T TRUE
Okay, here is where I dispell commonly held misbeliefs about me.
1) GlasgowSmiles is British
California born and raised and still-residing-in. But because I grew up with British tv and literature, I tend to speak and spell in a distinctly un-American way. This is not just an Internet misconception, I get it in RL, too. Because I'm a master of dialects? Because I never did the pledge of allegiance in school? Because I actually know history? Maybe a little bit of all of those. I actually kind of didn't want to dispell this one, because I really enjoy being mistaken for a Brit. I think my soul is British...
2) GlasgowSmiles is a man
This one is pretty much just over the internets. It's because the email I almost always use was once a shared account, and for some reason it still says stuff from me is from 'David'. Although I have been told I (and I quote) "shop like a man". Okay, once I was mistaken for a man in RL, but it was hallowe'en and I had a false beard, so at the time I was flattered. I've done guy parts in theatre a couple of times, it's fun.
3) GlasgowSmiles is a lesbian
Obviously this belief is not held by the same people who think I'm a man. It's probably not held by very many people, since it doesn't take a long time of knowing me for people to learn about my love of hot man-on-man action... But because I don't just love the hotness of man-love, but also the social equality thing, one of my friends from theatre invited me to join the campus gay club. Now, I'm not the only straight friend who's been welcomed in, but because I didn't introduce myself by saying 'Oh by the way I'm straight', there's no way for people to tell unless it comes up. Also, for a long time, most of my friends were straight guys, so I had to get used to being able to frankly discuss whether or not certain girls were hot. Since I'm pretty comfortable with myself, I don't have a problem with it, and I'm pretty good at being one of the guys. This one's really not a problem unless one of the girls ever develops an interest in me, in which case I will have to awkwardly explain my sexual orientation. Well, most of the girls I already knew from theatre know. It may never actually come up, in which case, all is cool.
4) GlasgowSmiles is forty.
Or thereabouts. This one crops up online occasionally because I love old TV shows and have a sense of history, including recent history, so I can come off as having 'been there'. Unfortunately, this also crops up in RL. I am forever being mistaken for twice my age. One friend first thought I was middle aged, but the first time she saw me was in the theatre, and I was in old age makeup and white spray-on dye, so she was still taking me for younger than my character, and when she saw me out of makeup, she didn't make the same mistake. But other people think I'm old. If I'm with my dad and my mom's not with us, little old ladies in grocery stores ask if my husband can reach the top shelf for them. NO ONE EVER APOLOGIZES TO ME. If it's the thing with my dad, they say to him 'you should be flattered, you look so young', but they never apologise to me! If I'm with my sister (two years younger than me)/brother (six years younger) and someone mistakes me for the mom, still no apology. They'll say my sister 'looks so young!' (she does-- she gets upset about being mistaken for fifteen. I'd like to have a problem like that...). Or they'll just shrug like 'honest mistake'. No, sir, it is not! I am twenty four, and just once, I'd like someone to realize that.
5) GlasgowSmiles is a functioning member of society
You'd think I'd be pleased about this one. I mean, sure, of course it's nice to be mistaken for functioning, but sometimes the way people do it PISSES ME OFF. Okay, backstory: I have Asperger's Syndrome. Thanks largely to being involved in the theatre for years, I have gained the ability to 'pass', and to read facial expressions, because I learned them in a classroom setting. But people who are meeting me now, who didn't know me in middle school, when they learn that I'm on the autism spectrum, often say 'I couldn't tell! You seem so normal!', and I just want to scream. There is no 'face' of autism like there is with many other syndromes/disorders. And even if I didn't hate the word normal, I hate that it's just... It takes so much WORK. When I go out and speak about what it's like to be on the autism spectrum, and people have, like, Rain Man in mind and I seem like a 'normal' young woman, I understand how that's not what you think when you hear 'autism', but it takes a lot of effort for me to do that, to fake eye contact, to be in a crowd of people I might not know, to have to speak as myself instead of as a character in a play, to not 'look autistic', whatever that means. But being able to 'pass' for an afternoon's panel discussion is not the same as functioning in life, which I cannot do, but because I am so 'high-functioning', it is tremendously hard to get services. I wasn't diagnosed until after I was out of school, but there are kids who are less high-functioning than I was being told they're 'not autistic enough' for services, which is a denial of FAPE, but argh. Anyway.
That's me.