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The Confusing Rainbow

In the autistic community...and by community, I mean the #ActuallyAutistic online community, there are two conflicting dogmas viewpoints that I often encounter. The first is that Autism is a spectrum.  And it's not a spectrum as in Red is the most and Blue is the least.  It's a spectrum that represents a huge variety of traits and experiences.  So while one autistic person may be hypersensitive to pain; another might be hyposensitive to pain.  Or while one autistic person easily gets motion sickness, another autistic person might seek out dizzying types of experiences.   The other viewpoint is that you are either autistic or you are not.  There is no little-bit-autistic.   If there is such huge variety in the autistic experience and yet there is a rigid line between autistic and not-autistic, how do we decide who is autistic and who is not?   Well...I was sitting here beginning to argue with myself.  Well, Dina. Duh. There are tests. But the tests aren't full proof.  For o
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Recent posts

Captured

One of my current special interests is dreams. This is not the first time I've been into dreams.  It's been a recurring interest for most of my life. I've made two purchases recently for my dream interest. The first is a lucid dreaming app called Capture.   The second is a bottle of pills that is supposed to increase your chances of having lucid dreams. I'm not actually particularly desiring lucid dreams this time.  The last time I was very into dreams, it was quite important to me.  Now I'm more interested in just having fun, beautiful, spiritual, otherworldly dreams.  If they happen to be lucid, that's cool.  But I'm okay if they're not.  That being said....it usually are my lucid dreams that are the most fun, beautiful, spiritual, and otherworldly.    Capture has a free mode which seems pretty good in itself.  But I decided to splurge and pay the $6 for a year's subscription.  I say splurge, because often I automatically turn away from apps that a
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My Five States of Blogging

 I am thinking that I have five states of blogging mode. 1. Rigid blogging routine: Everyday, I must write a certain type of blog post (ie: biography post or numbered post)....until I have some kind of inner meltdown and go on hiatus. 2. Hyper-prolific blogging: I blog when I feel like it....and that ends up being often. 3.  Wasted: I have ideas for posts.  I spend time working on it. Sometimes hours.  Then I change my mind, delete the post, and hate that I wasted all that time.   4. Major self doubt crisis: I can't believe I have all this personal stuff out there for the world to see. Should I make my blog private?   5. Blogging in my head: where I come up with ideas, "write" a few paragraphs in my head.  Say...nah.  And then a little time later, repeat the process. I've been on stage 5 the last few days.   I'm kind of impressed, though, that this one came out of my head and onto my blog.    Very unrelated photo I've decided to just go through my Google album
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Advice From My Past Self (Too Many Questions)

Lately, I've been reading my LiveJournal from 2006. Sometimes I find really good advice from myself...advice that makes me wish I didn't have to go back and read the old entries in order to remember the advice.  I mean...that I'd probably be a much better friend, family member, acquaintance, etc if this stuff was ingrained in my brain. And I'd probably have much better mental health. A post I read today was titled "more about questions" . (note: I have locked most of my old journal entries for privacy reasons but am unlocking the ones I share in this blog...so it doesn't look like I'm writing new stuff and pretending my past self wrote it.  Why would I do that?  I don't know.  But....) I'm still thinking about asking questions. I probably do it too much. I'm going to try to cut down on the questions I ask. I think I was taught to believe that asking questions is a virtue of being a good listener. I no longer agree with this. People talk abo
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An Exhausting List of My Special Interests

I've decided to make a list of all most of my life's what I used-to call-obsessions but the autistic community labels as "Special Interests". I will surely forget things. I know this, because I've seen myself forgetting things.  I've been reading some 2006 journal entries and find myself being reminded of interests I had forgotten.  Or sometimes there are interests that I downplayed in my head.  But now I read my journal and think...Wow, I was super obsessed. I'm going to try to go in chronological order. Peter Pan The Wizard of Oz Roald Dahl books  Annie Savanah Smiles Poltergeist All of a Kind Family Books  Michael Jackson (remembered and added 12/31/21) Child Stars (especially Heather O'Rourke) V Disney World  (off and on through out my life starting at around age 10 or 11) Days of our Lives   Karate Kid II  Asian culture/people (maybe bordering on racist/fetish kind of thing) Cabbage Patch Dolls (remembered and added 1/1/22) Mario Bros   Stephen K
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Returning to the Subject of Conversational Narcissism

Way back in 2012, I wrote a blog post about one of my biggest pet peeves: Conversational narcissism.  This is where someone tends to make the conversation all about themselves. I didn't just complain about it in this one blog post.  Through the years, I've complained about it on my blog on many occasions. I have often felt that I tended to end up in situations where people wanted one sided conversations; that they wanted me to play the role of free-therapist, free-cheerleader, the wind beneath their wings, etc.   But I've come across a confusing thing during my period of autistic self-discovery and diagnosis.   In multiple comment conversations and Instagram posts, I've seen other autistic people say that they tend to converse by bringing the subject back to themselves.  They say that the way they relate and respond is to listen and then talk about the same thing happening to them. And sometimes there's even this idea that to complain about it (as I've done)...
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TV Shows and Movies I watched in 2021

I think I might make this a tradition. Speaking of, here is my 2017 list   and my 2020 list. Oh! I didn't realize I skipped two years until just now. Anyway...here is my list divided my geography (setting not filming).  Some stuff I'm listing twice if it took place significantly in multiple places.  Blue font means I especially loved the show or movie.  Though lack of blue doesn't mean a lack of love...at the time.  Sometimes I will love a show when I see it but then later my enthusiasm fades.   Red font means I didn't like it. UNITED STATES  Death to 2020 The Good Witch  Cobra Kai   The Fosters   Shameless  WandaVision (this show was such a home-bridge for us.  I started watching it with Jack at our old house. Then we stayed at my parents house for the Texas snow disaster and watched some of the episodes there...in their very fancy home theater.  And for the last one or two episodes, I watched with Tim in our temporary-housing-townhouse.   Finding Oahu I hate this
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