Amanda Baggs ordered me, an autistic person, banned from Autreat and Autcom (conferences that are allegedly "Autistic Space" for autistics to attend)

And the sign said 'Long-haired freaky people need not apply'
So I tucked my hair up under my hat and I went in to ask him why
He said 'You look like a fine upstanding young man, I think you'll do'
So I took off my hat, I said 'Imagine that. Huh! Me workin' for you!'
Whoa-oh-oh
Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign?
And the sign said anybody caught trespassin' would be shot on sight
So I jumped on the fence and-a yelled at the house, 'Hey! What gives you
the right?'
'To put up a fence to keep me out or to keep mother nature in?'
'If God was here he'd tell you to your face, Man, you're some kinda sinner!'
Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign?
Now, hey you, mister, can't you read?
You've got to have a shirt and tie to get a seat
You can't even watch, no you can't eat
You ain't supposed to be here
The sign said you got to have a membership card to get inside
Ugh!
And the sign said, 'Everybody welcome. Come in, kneel down and pray'
But when they passed around the plate at the end of it all, I didn't have a
penny to pay
So I got me a pen and a paper and I made up my own little sign
I said, 'Thank you, Lord, for thinkin' 'bout me. I'm alive and doin' fine!'
Wooo!
Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign?
Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Sign
Sign, sign

"Signs" -- Five Man Electrical Band

That's great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane and Lenny Bruce is not afraid.
Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn - world serves its own needs, dummy serve your own needs.
Feed it off an aux speak, grunt, no, strength, Ladder start to clatter with fear fight down height.
Wire in a fire, representing seven games, a government for hire and a combat site.
Left of west and coming in a hurry with the furies breathing down your neck.
Team by team reporters baffled, trumped, tethered cropped.
Look at that low playing! Fine, then.
Uh oh, overflow, population, common food, but it'll do.
Save yourself, serve yourself.
World serves its own needs, listen to your heart bleed dummy with the rapture and the revered and the right, right.
You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright light, feeling pretty psyched.

It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.

Six o'clock - TV hour. Don't get caught in foreign towers.
Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn.
Locking in, uniforming, book burning, blood letting.
Every motive escalate. Automotive incinerate.
Light a candle, light a votive. Step down, step down.
Watch your heel crush, crushed, uh-oh, this means no fear cavalier.
Renegade steer clear!
A tournament, tournament, a tournament of lies.
Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline.

It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.

The other night I dreamt of knives, continental drift divide.
Mountains sit in a line, Leonard Bernstein. Leonid Brezhnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs.
Birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean, boom!
You symbiotic, patriotic, slam book neck, right? Right.

It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it. can't I have some time alone?
It's the end of the world as we know it can't I have some time alone? and I feel fine...fine...

It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it. can't I have some time alone?
It's the end of the world as we know it can't I have some time alone? and I feel fine...fine...

REM

So Long, Farewell/The End

There's a sad sort of clanging from the clock in the hall
And the bells in the steeple too
And up in the nursery an absurd little bird
Is popping out to say cuckoo
(Cuckoo! cuckoo!)

Regretfully they tell us
(Cuckoo! cuckoo!)
But firmly they compel us
(Cuckoo! cuckoo!)
To say goodbye . . .
(Cuckoo!)
to you

So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, good night
I hate to go and leave this pretty sight

So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, adieu
Adieu, adieu, to yieu and yieu and yieu

So long, farewell, au revoir, auf wiedersehen
I'd like to stay and taste my first champagne
(yes? no!)

So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye
I leave and heave a sigh and say goodbye -- Goodbye!

I'm glad to go, I cannot tell a lie
I flit, I float, I fleetly flee, I fly

The sun has gone to bed and so must I
So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
(Goodbye!)


And in the end

the love you take

is equal to the love

you make

Nobody Told Me

Boy oh boy
I can't even BEGIN to explain what prompted this blog entry, but trust me if could and if I ever do it'll be very understandable why I put this here when I did...





Everybody's talking and no one says a word
Everybody's making love and no one really cares
There's Nazis in the bathroom just below the stairs
Always something happening and nothing going on
There's always something cooking and nothing in the pot
They're starving back in China so finish what you got

Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Strange days indeed -- strange days indeed

Everybody's runnin' and no one makes a move
Everyone's a winner and nothing left to lose
There's a little yellow idol to the north of Katmandu
Everybody's flying and no one leaves the ground
Everybody's crying and no one makes a sound
There's a place for us in the movies you just gotta lay around

Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Strange days indeed -- most peculiar, mama

Everybody's smoking and no one's getting high
Everybody's flying and never touch the sky
There's a UFO over New York and I ain't too surprised

Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Strange days indeed -- most peculiar, mama

"Nobody Told Me" John Lennon 1984 Milk and Honey

The Times They Are A-Changin'

Some people would do well to listen to these words...


And these...

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.

There's A Place

There's a place online I can go where 'The Tick' and 'it's friends' don't go, I believe thus far they don't even know about it, a safe place for disabled people where I am welcomed and they aren't, should they find it and intrude upon it I have been told they wil be summarily uprooted. Its a safe haven for me from the mess which has been very useful to me and my saving grace at times. It helps me to take my mind off the mess and to regain my much needed sense of humor to be able to cope, and I am grateful to it. While it certainly has seemed that way at times, the bad guys don't in fact 'own' or monopolize the entire internet. I am finding that out and its nice. There are places I can go and I have found one and so, this blog entry's for you guys, thank you.

Happy Birthday To Me

I turned 43 today.
My friend John took me out to our usual place we go (we have only two) where I was offered a free dessert for my birthday.
We are 'regulars' there and most of the employees know us, but today a substitute manager (John recognized him from the other restaurant of this same franchise that exists 'across town' from this one) and so he tried to place us at a non regular table and was consequently quite confused when I got up and took our menus to one of our regular tables (both of which had been open).
Within minutes a group of Six (six count 'em sicx) teen-to-early 20'sish kids came in and the tubby substitute manager, ignoring the sea of empty tables around us, opted to pack these 6 people into the booth right behind my friend John and I. All Six wanted shakes so that meant the excessive running of the shake grinding machine (whatever that thing is, it sounds like a drill in a dentist's office and seems to be required for certain kinds of ice cream drinks served at this restaurant, one of its few real drawbacks) and between the 'teeth grinder in the back' and the excessively loud jabber jaws happy hyper high voiced bunch behind us (to their credit I must say that even as all this was taking place I was able to recognize no animosity was intended, this is just how overly social overly verbal young happy people go at expressing it without an awareness in the world that others may not be in the same place to 'appreciate' their behavior the way that they do), and I was already struggling to behave. I think frankly I do a damned good job of behaving, really. I do. I work hard at it and the work pays off much more often than it doesn't and I do very well, but there are exceptions and times.. and about the time my friend John informed me that Michigan is about to close.. I mean really.. the whole state.. close.. this place we live and that I love, I am not shy about it.. really is starving, worse than I even realized (I very rarely watch TV).. thats about the time I began making loud grunting moaning and rocking extremely hard and really 'spazzing'...



I don't make a practice of expounding on 'just how autistic I am' in my blogs or elsewhere, but yeah, I suppose being autistic 'comes into play'; here enough and its relevant at least, to what happened next.

I distinctly heard one of those at the table behind us say in a lowered voice (as if being 2 inches from the back of my head would somehow not emable me to hear this at any volume even if I only possessed the 'normal people's range and ability in hearing) "She's autistic, I've seen her on the web" as I heard what I would describe as a 'missed beat' and an extended silence beyond that in conversational 'rythm' from them, followed by a few minutes of what seemed to me to be perhaps concentrated effort to 'keep it down' a bit for a few minutes before wandering back to their previous level of 'Celebrating the Joy of Normalcy" back there, I sat with hands clapped to my ears, tried to be quiet enough not to be told 'shhh' by my friend John, tried not to rock too hard, sipped on my birthday "Orange Freeze" agonized that the Beatles song that had just come on the satellite system was all but obliterated, thought about my starving state, a few thoughts chucked in for my happy fame and fortune gleaning autism leech stalker and what may come of this situation, and simultaneously tried to behave (and people say we don't multi task). I got almost half of the Orange Freeze drank before it was time to leave.Behavior self control on both sides (theirs as well as mine) broke down, however compassion and empathy and some sort of understanding, which was mutual, did not.
Suffice it to say it wasn't an all bad day or all bad experience.

Regarding and as far as the the parts of life and the people that suck and continue to cause said sucking at this time):

While not from a religion I 'subscribe' to, there are some wise words to be found everywhere, including in this one, a popular (but alas not as popular as The Beatles according to John Lennon) couple of quotables, here are two I find especially meaningful and useful lately:

1. (unknown passage/verse):

"This too Shall Pass"

2. Verbatim "milage may vary' depending on the 'flavor' you're reading it from):

"Let not your heart be afraid, peace I give, not as the world giveth, give I" (John 14:28

Rock on, Michigan, Rock on, me.