LBnuke

if $brain >= $fried ? ramble : $code;

2 comments December 1st, 2007 1,508 views

I am too busy. I suck at being busy. It is my worst thing and it always ends badly. I am not sure how to not be busy. It is a vicious cycle. As soon as I start feeling better, I want to do things. All the things that I can’t do when I am sick. I want to work. I want to play. Sometimes, I even want to see people.

I was sick for so long. First a year of bad meds and then cat scratch fever. I was lucky that the meds thing got straightened out before the CSF, but it is only very recently that I can enjoy it. Suddenly, I find myself feeling great! I still get tired and confused, but that is ok. It is part of how I am. After such a long time of not being able to do things that I wanted to, I feel like it is a race for time to do them now that I am feeling good. I would love to think it will always be like this, but the truth is that it is not and never has been.

The thing is, I think it could be like this most of the time if I didn’t have stress. I know that is impossible, but it would be possible to have much less stress. Only problem with that is I would be stuck not doing anything I want to do again. I am stressed by working. I am stressed by traveling. I am stressed by being around people. My brain gets overloaded and bad things happen. I get sick. The screaming in my head that is kept in the background by the meds gets louder. My brain shuts down. I twitch like crazy. I become miserable and useless.

I have no idea what to do about this. I want to work so badly. I love what I do. It is like being paid for doing puzzles and arts and crafts. When I code, my brain is in a happy place. Everything makes sense. It has to. As an added bonus, I get to take that code and turn it into a (hopefully) beautiful thing to look at. I am not a graphic artist by any means, so even the art part is like a puzzle. I combine graphic art made by actual artists, with photoshop skills and an eye for detail, and create an entirely new thing that never existed before. What’s not to love?

I was wanting to go to Florida to see my niece Hannah and the rest of my family for a whole year, but couldn’t because of being too sick. Then all of a sudden, I was okay to travel. It is a rare and beautiful thing. There was no way I wasn’t going to Florida. The trip (airplane, etc.) went pretty well thanks to Dramamine and, as always, being with Karen made everything better and more fun. Being in Florida was even okay. I love my family, but I hate Florida. I can’t deal with the hot and humid weather. We completely lucked out with that. Not insanely hot or humid. Last time I was there, I couldn’t even stand to be outside for more than a minute. Got instantly exhausted and dizzy.

It was really great to see my family. Hannah is beyond the legal limits of cute. It was so nice to get to know her better and see her sweet smile. I really loved getting to see her with my brother, sister-in-law, and parents too. They are a family. I am so glad they live so close to each other. Sometimes it is hard living so far away. Sometimes I wish Florida was in Nevada. My cousin Eric was there too. It is always nice to see him and my aunt Wilma and uncle Pat too. Sarah’s (sister-in-law) family was there too. It was nice to see them too. So nice, that we brought her sister Sam back with us. She will be going to acupuncture school in Berkeley starting in January and has been staying with us this past week. She magically found a great place to live in Berkeley on her fist try and will be moving in today.

Bad Apples

Haven’t had enough rambling yet? Then on to the saga of the bad imacs. Me, my dad, and my brother all got new aluminum imacs last month. 2 out of 3 of them were duds. There was a problem with the ATI graphics cards. The whole computer was unstable because of it. Black screens, blue screens, strange graphics, freezing, etc. Windows X 10.5? There has been a firmware update for the graphics cards released that appears to fix the problem for most, if not all, people. Thankfully, my brother’s was fine from the start. Both me and my dad returned our computers and got brand new replacements. All is good now.

The new imac came with Leopard and now that it works, I have been loving it! The screen is huge! Not only is it 24″, but I have been using Spaces, a new feature of Leopard where you can have several “desktops” and easily switch between them. For example I can have photoshop open in one desktop, giving it the entire screen to itself, mail and safari open in another, Firefox and BBedit in another, etc.

Time Machine is totally cool too. I can’t even believe how easy it is to back up. You plug in the external drive and the mac asks if you want to use it for Time Machine. You click ‘yes’. That is it. Your hard drive is being backed up every hour and saving daily, weekly, and monthly backups for as far back in time as the drive will allow. When it gets full, it asks if you would like it to delete the oldest backups to make room. Unbelievable! I will still make daily clones as soon as super duper is Leopard ready, but Time Machine offers a different kind of backup that is easier to use, automatic, and frequent.

Just a few more things to ramble about before I go…

K - I am so very proud of K! She has been saving the world as always. In recognition of her hard work, she has gotten a promotion at work and is now a supervisor, which is the direction she has been wanting to go. Congratulations K! It makes me happy to know that people will have an opportunity to learn from her and benefit from her years of experience.

Warcrack - Shikibee has joined a new guild and is about to ding level 50.

Rehab - I am meeting with someone once a week who will help me research if there are jobs available where I can do contract work from home or with a very flexible schedule. I would really like that. Freelancing is great because I set my own hours and don’t have to answer to anyone except my clients, but I work all the time and barely make any money.

If I did contracted work instead, someone else would be dealing with the clients, setting the prices, and all of the other business related things that I can not do. Even splitting the money with an agency or other company, it is very likely that I would make more money than I do now. I hope something like that could work out. I was hoping that I could keep my current clients and stop taking new freelance jobs if there were contract jobs available instead.

Wordpress 2.3 Update - This one went much more smoothly than the last two. I wish there was a way to manage tags, but from what I understand, the dev team is waiting to find out what people want rather than starting with a ton of features that people may or may not use and then having to change them later. I am looking forward to 2.4 and the new admin changes.

Joomla 1.5 - I am working on a new client site with Joomla 1.5 RC3. It has been very stable and the code is MUCH cleaner than before. I love the new templating system and look forward to its final release and the updated extensions that will follow. If you are planning to integrate any kind of forums into your site, stay with 1.0.x for now.

phpBB3 - Love it! Tons of improvements over phpBB2. Current release is RC8. This update has been a long time in the making. I am hoping that converting from older version will not be total hell.

I have finally run out of things to ramble about for now

Filed under: Autism / Asperger's, Geekery, Mac Stuff, Random, Travel

Tags: family, imac, life, mac, wordpress, work

Too Many Things

5 comments August 21st, 2007 2,096 views

I am starting to wonder if it is possible for me to really have a “normal” life. Things are so much better than before and my meds are finally working again, but even though I can do so many more things now, I am realizing that my limits and tolerance are still pretty low.

Things that have been very hard or impossible to do for the past year:

• Reading
• Working
• Doing martial arts
• Leaving the house
• Playing warcrack
• Being around people
• Traveling

Almost all of those things are easier now, but I still can’t do that many of them without getting overwhelmed. When I get overwhelmed, I can’t think and when I can’t think, I am back to not being able to do anything anymore. It is occurring to me that this will not change. I am not sure why I keep thinking that it will. Things have always been this way as long as I can remember, no matter what meds I am taking and how well they are working.

The things that are hardest sometimes change from one med to the next, but there is never a time when I can really do things like other people can. It can be argued that there are things that I can do better than a lot of people can and I am very lucky for that, but no matter how much I have learned to appreciate my ‘different’ brain, there is still a part of me that is very jealous of how easy it is for most people to do things that completely wear me out or that I can not do at all. I wish I didn’t feel like that, but it is hard not to.

I wish I could be around people without getting confused and exhausted trying to figure out what to do, what to say, when to say it, all while paying attention to and remembering what is going on around me and what everyone else is saying, and how everything everyone is saying relates to the things that other people are saying. People do this every minute of every day as though it was not complicated at all. I don’t understand. I can’t understand. I hate not understanding.

I want to work. I have to work because we need money. We have a house and 4 cats and I have an expensive computer habit to pay for. I love what I do, but don’t even have any idea if I am making money, losing money, or breaking even. I want to do martial arts, but am still finding it too hard to be around people doing something so intense. I keep trying to think of other ways and places to do it, but I can’t think of a way to do it without other people. I wish it was like in the old days where some kind Sensei would take me under their wing and I would wash their car for them. Mr. Miyagi, where are you?

If I work all day, or even worse, try to work all day and don’t get anything done, then I can’t even get out of the house. If I don’t get out of the house, I can’t think. If I can’t think, I can’t do anything. It is a vicious cycle that repeats forever in some form or other.

Lately, there are so many things going on and it is getting harder and harder to do any of them. It is not the meds this time. It is just my brain being itself. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to have less things. There are work things and house things and cat things and travel things and people things and non-work website things and computer things and all of the other random things that seem to pop up every day.

I can work, but it is very hard to concentrate. I have been able to read a little. I have been able to get out of the house much better, but it has been getting harder and harder as there are more and more things. I get too confused. I can’t do anything in the house and can’t leave it. Sucks.

It is not all bad. One very fun thing has been teaching Karen to play warcrack. She is on a 10 day trial account and we have been wandering Azeroth together as a gnome mage (K) and a dwarf rogue (me). I think we are level 7. It is fun to play with K. Today she sent me a funny description of how she described what playing is like to a friend of hers:

“I draw the enemies out by frostballing them, then I fireball them while Lori is stabbing them and then she beats them to death.”

Good clean fun

Filed under: Autism / Asperger's

Tags: house, life, ramble, warcraft, work

Excellent Asperger’s Article

2 comments July 23rd, 2007 1,312 views

My friend d has written an excellent article about living with asperger’s. I can relate to much of what she said in the post and I am guessing that a lot of people who visit LBnuke will too.

The article is called about asperger’s syndrome, in plain english. Definitely worth the click

Filed under: Autism / Asperger's

Tags: autism

very random thoughts from the lake

4 comments July 16th, 2007 1,000 views

I am at Lake Merrit, about half way around. Online. This is cool. I am trying to type with 2 thumbs. Better than last time I tried. Still appreciating David Pogue’s punctuation shortcut every time I use it.

It is so nice to be able to leave the house again. The water helps my brain. Easier to think now. Stopped to look at birds that are right here in front of this bench. This rocks! There is no wifi here but I am on the internet. Magic.

Too hard to sit still anymore. Gotta go.

At the bus stop now on MacArthur Blvd. It is still loud in my head but better than before. It is time to go home now. It is very hard to think. Someone who lives near this bus stop has unprotected wifi. Thank you stranger.

Back home now. The bus was crowded. No seats. Standing in front of the yellow line and the driver kept letting more people on at every stop. I don’t think that is legal. Usually the driver tells people to get behind the yellow line. Didn’t have to get off before my stop. That is a rare and beautiful thing.

I wish I could think. Or work. Or play. Or read. At least I got lots of work done this morning. Another reason why it is so much better to work for myself than for someone else. If I worked somewhere else, the morning hours would be lost and commuting would have zapped all the energy that I would have had for working.

I find myself wishing there was a copy of BBedit on the iphone that would sync w/my computer. I notice that I compare it to a computer more than to another phone. What would it be like to code on the iphone? Hard to imagine. I would have to get way faster at typing and it is hard to even imagine what having the numbers and symbols and letters on different keyboards would be like. I didn’t even notice if there were curly braces on any of them. You never really appreciate curly braces until they are gone. It is a cool phone, but definitely not a laptop replacement.

I was thinking about strange things on my way home from the bus stop. At one point, I rolled up my sweatshirt sleeve and somehow ended up holding a bee in the opposite hand. I flicked it off of me. I am allergic to bees. Not very bad, but it seems to get worse every time. When I was younger, just a little sting and maybe swelling. The last couple of times huge swelling and the very last time I got a fever too. I haven’t been stung by a bee in a long time.

I like to watch bees and to think about bees, but not to hold them. I like the way they fly around flowers. Up and down, back and forth, fly away and then come back again. It looks random, but I don’t think it is. It is their way of doing things and it works. They get the job done. Very different than ants. Ants like straight lines. When they are doing their job, they don’t look random. They look very organized. I don’t like watching ants. It stresses me out. Part of it is that I hate killing them and sometimes have to when they are crawling up my kitchen wall in a line. It is not an ant friendly world. There is no way I can feel right about wiping out an entire community in less than a minute but I do it anyway. What a strange world.

Humans as a species sometimes remind me of green belts in karate. It is a transitional period of having knowledge and power, but not necessarily knowing how to use it. Sparring with a green belt is much scarier than sparring a black belt. I know I am safe sparring with a black belt. I have been hurt more than once sparring a green belt. With the exception of the occasional teenaged boy who has something to prove, they usually don’t mean to hurt anyone but they can strike hard and are still learning to control their techniques in an amped up situation.

Humans have enough knowledge to make theories based on things that they don’t have complete information about. How do I know I am better than an ant? What gives me the right to decide that they have to die because I don’t like having them in my house? Why do we think we are the most intelligent species? If you check the facts, we are obviously not. Without humans, there is balance and an ecosystem that works very well. We kill each other and we kill our planet and it has gone on for so long that it is hard to see another way to live. We don’t know how to live in a different kind of world. I am sure there are human societies in the world that know how, but if we find them we will steal their land and try to make them be like us. Welcome to PMS week.

The other reason that I don’t like watching ants is because I can’t do it without thinking. It is like trying to read in the same room where there is an interesting tv show on. When I watch a bee, it is just part of everything. Something to anchor my attention in the background. Keeps me connected to the world while still being able to leave it. I like that.

Filed under: Autism / Asperger's, Geekery, Random

Tags: ramble

Queer Jews and Karate

3 comments June 26th, 2007 1,344 views

A couple of weeks ago, I was wondering when my life would be back to normal. This past weekend, it bulldozed past normal and entered into surreality. Friday night I was still my regular self. Karen went to the dyke march and then out dancing at Mango with Lorena and Tess, and I stayed home because I didn’t want to be around so many people.

On Sunday, the day of the pride parade, I decided that I wanted to go. Not just go. I wanted to MARCH IN THE PARADE with our temple (or at least what might be our temple if we ever get around to checking it out more). I had a good time. It is actually less crowded in the parade than watching it from the sidelines. There was this Jewish youth group in front of us that were all wearing bright orange shirts. Fresh squeezed orange jews. Sorry, I tried not to write that, but I couldn’t resist. Every time the parade stopped, they would perform a same sex jewish wedding under a rainbow flag chuppah, smash a plastic cup wrapped in a napkin, and then run around in circles singing. Made me happy.

I was the sole member of the queer autistic jew contingent. I was wearing my autistic planet t-shirt to create some queer autistic visibility. Not exactly sure why, but it is San Francisco and every other subcategory of subcategory is represented. Seems appropriate that it was a contingent of one.

After the parade, K and I went into the crowd to find some food and try to meet Lorena and Tess. In the crowd, I reverted to my normal self and started gradually getting overwhelmed until I couldn’t think at all. We walked all the way to 16th St. and Mission BART so that we could get a seat before it got totally crowded at Civic Center. We were completely spent by the time we got back home and took a nap for a couple of hours. It was great! It is very rare that I can take naps during the day.

Last night, I went back to Cuong Nhu class for the first time since before my medicine hell started. I was kind of scared because there is a lot to process there and other people and instructions. My Sensei had told me that I can take it slow and do stuff by myself. I had thought I might just go and watch, but even before I left the house, I realized that there was no chance that I was going to enter that dojo and not kick something! I like to kick things. I kicked air

It was nice to see everybody. There was a new white belt that I had never met before and two of our white belts had become green belts. Color belts are especially exciting in Cuong Nhu because there are only 4 of them until 5th degree black belt. White, green, brown, and black. In between, there are 2 stripes of the next color belt sewed onto your current belt. I think I am permanently stuck at one black stripe, but I don’t even care. At least last night I didn’t. I was so happy to be back there.

I was able to do more than I thought I would. I knew I would remember basic techniques and kata because I have been doing them for over 10 years and they are beyond the part of my brain that has to think. I start forgetting moves about half way through the more advanced katas, but I will probably remember after practicing a few times. The part that surprised me was that I could actually participate in the group as long as we were doing separate things.

During the first part of class, we did drills up and down the dojo where each rank gets a different set of moves to do. I was in my own group even though Rosanne is a brown belt too. There was no way I could follow the instructions she was getting. Long series of moves. Sensei Amy was very kind to me and kept mine to 3 moves or less. I think that was about my maximum memory span. I am not sure how she knew that too. After that, we did kata and I practiced the basic ones. The rest are for next time I think.

About 15 minutes before the water break, my brain was starting to crap out. I started forgetting moves to a kata that I had just done three times in a row without a problem. I got very confused about directions and couldn’t focus at all. I would forget what I was doing in between moves. I thought about leaving, but I knew we were having a break soon, so I stayed. I considered staying after the break. People were practicing self defense techniques and I was going to practice something by myself, but everything was too confusing. I decided to leave while I was still able to drive home.

By the time I got home, I couldn’t think at all, but I didn’t really care.

Filed under: Autism / Asperger's, Martial Arts, Random

Tags: cuong-nhu, life, ramble