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Fun Facts about the undeniably aspie me! (long)
15 years ago
The other day, Sema and I went on a ~date~ and wound up walking off the calories from Ruby Tuesday's at Barnes and Noble. I was looking for books on AS, and after sifting through a lot of books aimed at parents of aspie kids, and found this neato gem: The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome.
Before I get into that, though, there was one book that I gleaned an interesting tidbit of information from, that I'd like to share. It was a red book that had lots of drawing by kids. The thing that caught my eye was a drawing of a schoolyard fight, in which two boys with peacock tails were about to duke it out. Of course I'm gonna stop and look at something like that- I want to know what the heck is going on there!
It was a scene written from the perspective of an aspie of how fights start between two insecure, macho boys. He described that being considered 'hard' and 'tough' was of utmost importance in growing up, and escalating confrontation was the only way to prove that to your peers. As an 'outsider' the author noted how bizarre the whole process seemed.
The reason I mentioned this is because this is exactly how I feel about certain social rituals and norms, and I suppose is part/most of the reason why I feel 'transgendered'. I just want to reiterate that my gender identity aligns closest with 'neither'. Because of my innate aloofness to subtle social cues about how I 'should' act (as well as many deliberate acts of defiance) I have mostly picked out my behaviors, interests, and hobbies for myself, rather than let others pick them for me because of my cash and prizes. As a result, I never formed the same gender-binary world-view that most people see. Kind of like students that are home-schooled never get imprinted mentally with a rigid social caste system based on grade-level. Does that even make sense? Being a macho jock is retarded; being a skanky psycho bitch is also retarded. So what I did was just take bits and pieces from everywhere and put them in a glass bowl. Stoicism and analytical-ness, amiability and visual thinking, something like that. Why shit so crazy.
Good lord I didn't intend to write that much on that topic.
A topic that comes up again and again in AS books is bullying. I don't doubt I got my fair share of bullying. It wasn't really that bad for me, though, for two specific reasons: I always had somebody worse than me, and I didn't give kids that many reasons to hassle me. Long story short, I was in my school district's "gifted" program (i.e. send the smart, white kids to the trashy gang-banger schools across town to boost test scores). The neighborhood kids at the schools mostly fought amongst themselves (Latin Kings and Gang Disciples), and I mostly flew under the radar. Fortunately for me, there was a kid named Kevin that was very loud and very obnoxious, and really attracted a lot of the heat.
Then there were the physical and mental aspects. I was always tall and skinny, usually one of the top 3 tallest in my class. I'm currently a petite 6' 1.5" (187cm) without shoes. Despite the fact that the AS books always seem to peg aspies on being clumsy, I consider myself to have incredible dexterity and coordination. (Insert shameless plug for my youtube account here tarennauxen, where you can see me rock out at Beatmania.) That didn't give people a lot to work with! As I moved into high school, I earned some respect by being 'that guy that writes all the cheat programs for the calculator'. Still, that didn't stop me from getting flak for always being a little eccentric and frequently hanging out with 'uncool' people.
Speaking of eccentric, I wanted to discuss the real reason for me writing this: the books all talk about 'special interests', things of intense fascination and obsession. Upon learning about the ancient four-element system (air, fire, earth, water- that stuff) I always identified with fire. Not only was summertime kickass (fuck February, subzero temps can bite me, as they frequently do) but fire also represents intensity, passion, and consumption. Whenever I found a 'source of ignition', my blaze would burn hot, spread quickly, and engulf everything in sight.
Now that I look back on it, I wanted to enumerate some of the things in the past that have captivated my attention. I've always felt- and still do- that if something is worth my effort, I'm going to give it 170% or more... or none at all. This leads to some interesting dilemmas when special interests take priority over interpersonal relationships. But anyway, here are some neat 'blasts from the past'.
One of my first major interests was math. My parents bought me all sorts of toys and gadgets to encourage it. My kindergarten I was able to do simple equations with all four operators. I whizzed past the other kindergarteners when it came to math time. On the other hand, I wasn't so hot about learning to read (I was fairly middle-of-the-pack). Each student had a colored folder of lessons to master. First it was the basic alphabet. When you figured out all of those letters, you moved on to diphthongs and special sounds (ch, th, sh, etc.) and eventually the elusive purple folder- consonant clusters. Even more hilarious, I was the last in my class to learn how to tie a shoe. Velcro was working for me, and numbers were far more interesting- fuck that shit, man. I bet the only reason I learned was because there was a Chuck E Cheese trip involved as a reward for learning it!
Being tall at a young age allowed me to see over the top of pinball tables. One day my aunt took me to the Game Factory (small arcade chain near Rockford) and corrupted me for life. Around age 8-9 I began playing pinball constantly, primarily at the bowling alley after league on Saturday mornings, and at Chuck E. Cheese, or whenever I could convince my parents to take me to Game Factory. I began building my own tables out of wooden blocks and a ping-pong table, or whatever I could find. I started designing tables shortly thereafter. By fourth or fifth grade I had drawn extremely detailed machine blueprints called the "Funhouse" series (despite the existing trademark). My company was called Double-Check and the logo was almost identical to the VW symbol. The series ended somewhere around "Funhouse 80".
Did I mention bowling? I started around age 7, with bumpers. The Saturday morning leagues were always ranked by tier: juniors and seniors (HS/college) were at the low end, followed by preps, bantams, and bumpers. It slowly turned into a special interest as I got older, and I wanted to play it all the time. I'd set up elaborate makeshift lanes, with pins and a ball. I'd entertain myself for hours. First it was 2-liter bottles and a soccerball, then in middle school, I made the Beanie Bowl. It was a 6-foot pine board with a particle-board base (for gutters) and some cardboard blocks as a backstop. The curtain in the back was an exercise mat. For pins, I alternated between Crayola markers for the "regular circuit" and 5/8" dia. dowel rods for the "pro circuit". The dowel rod pins made an interesting noise when they were struck, especially because most of them had pennies and dimes hot-glued to the base for support. The ball was usually a tennis ball, but at one point I upgraded to a batting cage ball. It was freaking amazing.
Yeah, you heard right- Beanie Bowl. Gee I wonder where I came up with that name? Right. This was about 1997, and by then I had managed to learn all of the names of the then-current set, their birthdates, their retirement status, and their market values. When I went to Canada that one time, you better believe I flipped my shit when I found the rare Bears with double (canadian) tush-tags. I spent the rest of the trip translating metric for my parents. (How hot is 15?)
A few years later, I did the same thing with golf courses. My dad had encouraged me to try golf (which I played casually until I went to college), and I had picked up a computer simulator called Jack Nicklaus 5. It included a course designer. Since it was the family machine (read: mine, when my mom wasn't doing grades or checking email) I put my personal files in there, too. That's why up until this current computer, almost all of my personal data was stored in a directory called "C:\Golf Courses". First you figure out your plot of land, then where the natural landscapes already exist, like creeks and hills, and then you lay down a skeleton of the tee boxes and pins. Holes 1-9-10-18 all touch the clubhouse. Each par 3 needs and par 5. Draw the greens, bunkers, cart paths, fairways, rough, and foliage. I was such a nut about good course design and balance that in 8th grade, a teacher in school tried to humiliate me for doodling them in class instead of paying rapt attention to the lecture.
I had my share of bizarre collections around then too. It was kind of like compulsive hoarding, but only for specific items. At one point, Coke was doing some NFL-related promo, where all of the 12oz cans had red tops with numbers printed on the pack. I made a necklace out of the numbers ordered sequentially, although I didn't quite get all 99. Lots and lots of duplicates, though. I also went though a phase of collecting 20oz plastic bottle tops. This probably started when all those companies were doing giveaways under the label. You know, back before everyone was able to freely give their personal information away over the internet? Fruitopia was freaking amazing. A shame it's pretty much gone except for that one McDonald's in DeKalb. I amassed something like 700 caps before I just said 'fuck it'. I did the same thing with spent AA batteries and small compressed CO2 canisters. Still not sure why. I sort of did it for a while with fabric, but now that I have everything, there's no need to!
Everything else kinda went on hold when I found Draconic/AltFanDragons. That's a story for another day... My only other interest at that point was bowling. By then, I was to the point where it had turned into a very specific ritual. If there was league or scholastic practice/meets, I was picky about attire (no long sleeves and no long pants/slacks, I don't care if it's 20 below and snowing that's what leg hair is for) and my equipment, and getting there early. Missing even one minute of warm-up was distressing, and jumping in late would have ruined my world. It's okay if you don't "get it"- that means you're normal. Junior Gold and High School tournaments forced me to overcome the attire deal, and college/fun bowling broke me of the warm-up/practice ritual. I'm still adamant about bringing my own equipment and being fiercely focused and competitive. Sorry, that's what 11 years of competitive league play and a 200+ average does to you. I play to win, or I don't play at all.
The pinball interest came back when I discovered Visual Pinball on the net. I started designing my own tables... again. This time, I could play them! And since I was getting into C++ programming at the time, picking up VBScript for controlling the mechanisms and lights was a snap.
On one of my bowling trips to St. Louis in February 2002, I was introduced to DDR. It became an instant interest. I played that shit nonstop that summer, going from "What's Konamix?" to "I fucking cleared Dead End SSR *dies*" in 3 months. (I also dropped 10% of my body weight that summer, from 150 to 135. I didn't break 150 again until 2008.) Now that I had a car and a part-time job, I could travel the Greater Rockford area and get my fix. Rev'd Up, CherryVale Mall Cyberstation, and Huskies Den at NIU ftw. Janesville and Norridge trips only when Jay-D drove, and Naperville when GTC drove, because my clunker couldn't survive the interstates.
I attempted to create a DDR simulator in Visual Pinball, which was not only hilarious as shit, but successful. I was quickly introduced to Dance With Intensity (written by furries oh snap DJ Drafthorse and SimWolf) and Stepmania. Started writing my own charts for songs (I'm up to something like 150 different songs), as well as spending an ungodly amount of time learning every little nuance of the game. Song appearances, hidden codes, trivia, reverse engineering the scoring systems, advising developers on the different game options. Crazy stuff like that. When the lull hit in 2003-4, I moved on to IIDX. I still play, but after being plateaued for years, it's more of a casual hobby. I can't really improve any more, so it's slowly being relegated to only when I'm bored or stressed out.
Well, that was fun to write. I enjoy writing about this kind of stuff, especially when I know people take interest in it. I doubt many people can relate to my experiences, but hopefully it's fun to take a look at how wacky my childhood was compared to everyone else's. Maybe? I don't know.
I also have a tendency to talk about myself too much. I just want somebody to listen!
Have you or anyone you know shown signs of special-interest behaviors like this? Feel free to share your stories in the comments, I love seeing my comment counter go up, especially when I'm bored at work.
Anyway, I'm currently very interested in learning about AS, and how others have dealt with this 'gift'. I luffs my
semjay very much and know that sometimes my eccentricity puts stress on the relationship. Fortunately, we are super awesome together and still going strong!
CLINK!!!!
Before I get into that, though, there was one book that I gleaned an interesting tidbit of information from, that I'd like to share. It was a red book that had lots of drawing by kids. The thing that caught my eye was a drawing of a schoolyard fight, in which two boys with peacock tails were about to duke it out. Of course I'm gonna stop and look at something like that- I want to know what the heck is going on there!
It was a scene written from the perspective of an aspie of how fights start between two insecure, macho boys. He described that being considered 'hard' and 'tough' was of utmost importance in growing up, and escalating confrontation was the only way to prove that to your peers. As an 'outsider' the author noted how bizarre the whole process seemed.
The reason I mentioned this is because this is exactly how I feel about certain social rituals and norms, and I suppose is part/most of the reason why I feel 'transgendered'. I just want to reiterate that my gender identity aligns closest with 'neither'. Because of my innate aloofness to subtle social cues about how I 'should' act (as well as many deliberate acts of defiance) I have mostly picked out my behaviors, interests, and hobbies for myself, rather than let others pick them for me because of my cash and prizes. As a result, I never formed the same gender-binary world-view that most people see. Kind of like students that are home-schooled never get imprinted mentally with a rigid social caste system based on grade-level. Does that even make sense? Being a macho jock is retarded; being a skanky psycho bitch is also retarded. So what I did was just take bits and pieces from everywhere and put them in a glass bowl. Stoicism and analytical-ness, amiability and visual thinking, something like that. Why shit so crazy.
Good lord I didn't intend to write that much on that topic.
A topic that comes up again and again in AS books is bullying. I don't doubt I got my fair share of bullying. It wasn't really that bad for me, though, for two specific reasons: I always had somebody worse than me, and I didn't give kids that many reasons to hassle me. Long story short, I was in my school district's "gifted" program (i.e. send the smart, white kids to the trashy gang-banger schools across town to boost test scores). The neighborhood kids at the schools mostly fought amongst themselves (Latin Kings and Gang Disciples), and I mostly flew under the radar. Fortunately for me, there was a kid named Kevin that was very loud and very obnoxious, and really attracted a lot of the heat.
Then there were the physical and mental aspects. I was always tall and skinny, usually one of the top 3 tallest in my class. I'm currently a petite 6' 1.5" (187cm) without shoes. Despite the fact that the AS books always seem to peg aspies on being clumsy, I consider myself to have incredible dexterity and coordination. (Insert shameless plug for my youtube account here tarennauxen, where you can see me rock out at Beatmania.) That didn't give people a lot to work with! As I moved into high school, I earned some respect by being 'that guy that writes all the cheat programs for the calculator'. Still, that didn't stop me from getting flak for always being a little eccentric and frequently hanging out with 'uncool' people.
Speaking of eccentric, I wanted to discuss the real reason for me writing this: the books all talk about 'special interests', things of intense fascination and obsession. Upon learning about the ancient four-element system (air, fire, earth, water- that stuff) I always identified with fire. Not only was summertime kickass (fuck February, subzero temps can bite me, as they frequently do) but fire also represents intensity, passion, and consumption. Whenever I found a 'source of ignition', my blaze would burn hot, spread quickly, and engulf everything in sight.
Now that I look back on it, I wanted to enumerate some of the things in the past that have captivated my attention. I've always felt- and still do- that if something is worth my effort, I'm going to give it 170% or more... or none at all. This leads to some interesting dilemmas when special interests take priority over interpersonal relationships. But anyway, here are some neat 'blasts from the past'.
One of my first major interests was math. My parents bought me all sorts of toys and gadgets to encourage it. My kindergarten I was able to do simple equations with all four operators. I whizzed past the other kindergarteners when it came to math time. On the other hand, I wasn't so hot about learning to read (I was fairly middle-of-the-pack). Each student had a colored folder of lessons to master. First it was the basic alphabet. When you figured out all of those letters, you moved on to diphthongs and special sounds (ch, th, sh, etc.) and eventually the elusive purple folder- consonant clusters. Even more hilarious, I was the last in my class to learn how to tie a shoe. Velcro was working for me, and numbers were far more interesting- fuck that shit, man. I bet the only reason I learned was because there was a Chuck E Cheese trip involved as a reward for learning it!
Being tall at a young age allowed me to see over the top of pinball tables. One day my aunt took me to the Game Factory (small arcade chain near Rockford) and corrupted me for life. Around age 8-9 I began playing pinball constantly, primarily at the bowling alley after league on Saturday mornings, and at Chuck E. Cheese, or whenever I could convince my parents to take me to Game Factory. I began building my own tables out of wooden blocks and a ping-pong table, or whatever I could find. I started designing tables shortly thereafter. By fourth or fifth grade I had drawn extremely detailed machine blueprints called the "Funhouse" series (despite the existing trademark). My company was called Double-Check and the logo was almost identical to the VW symbol. The series ended somewhere around "Funhouse 80".
Did I mention bowling? I started around age 7, with bumpers. The Saturday morning leagues were always ranked by tier: juniors and seniors (HS/college) were at the low end, followed by preps, bantams, and bumpers. It slowly turned into a special interest as I got older, and I wanted to play it all the time. I'd set up elaborate makeshift lanes, with pins and a ball. I'd entertain myself for hours. First it was 2-liter bottles and a soccerball, then in middle school, I made the Beanie Bowl. It was a 6-foot pine board with a particle-board base (for gutters) and some cardboard blocks as a backstop. The curtain in the back was an exercise mat. For pins, I alternated between Crayola markers for the "regular circuit" and 5/8" dia. dowel rods for the "pro circuit". The dowel rod pins made an interesting noise when they were struck, especially because most of them had pennies and dimes hot-glued to the base for support. The ball was usually a tennis ball, but at one point I upgraded to a batting cage ball. It was freaking amazing.
Yeah, you heard right- Beanie Bowl. Gee I wonder where I came up with that name? Right. This was about 1997, and by then I had managed to learn all of the names of the then-current set, their birthdates, their retirement status, and their market values. When I went to Canada that one time, you better believe I flipped my shit when I found the rare Bears with double (canadian) tush-tags. I spent the rest of the trip translating metric for my parents. (How hot is 15?)
A few years later, I did the same thing with golf courses. My dad had encouraged me to try golf (which I played casually until I went to college), and I had picked up a computer simulator called Jack Nicklaus 5. It included a course designer. Since it was the family machine (read: mine, when my mom wasn't doing grades or checking email) I put my personal files in there, too. That's why up until this current computer, almost all of my personal data was stored in a directory called "C:\Golf Courses". First you figure out your plot of land, then where the natural landscapes already exist, like creeks and hills, and then you lay down a skeleton of the tee boxes and pins. Holes 1-9-10-18 all touch the clubhouse. Each par 3 needs and par 5. Draw the greens, bunkers, cart paths, fairways, rough, and foliage. I was such a nut about good course design and balance that in 8th grade, a teacher in school tried to humiliate me for doodling them in class instead of paying rapt attention to the lecture.
I had my share of bizarre collections around then too. It was kind of like compulsive hoarding, but only for specific items. At one point, Coke was doing some NFL-related promo, where all of the 12oz cans had red tops with numbers printed on the pack. I made a necklace out of the numbers ordered sequentially, although I didn't quite get all 99. Lots and lots of duplicates, though. I also went though a phase of collecting 20oz plastic bottle tops. This probably started when all those companies were doing giveaways under the label. You know, back before everyone was able to freely give their personal information away over the internet? Fruitopia was freaking amazing. A shame it's pretty much gone except for that one McDonald's in DeKalb. I amassed something like 700 caps before I just said 'fuck it'. I did the same thing with spent AA batteries and small compressed CO2 canisters. Still not sure why. I sort of did it for a while with fabric, but now that I have everything, there's no need to!
Everything else kinda went on hold when I found Draconic/AltFanDragons. That's a story for another day... My only other interest at that point was bowling. By then, I was to the point where it had turned into a very specific ritual. If there was league or scholastic practice/meets, I was picky about attire (no long sleeves and no long pants/slacks, I don't care if it's 20 below and snowing that's what leg hair is for) and my equipment, and getting there early. Missing even one minute of warm-up was distressing, and jumping in late would have ruined my world. It's okay if you don't "get it"- that means you're normal. Junior Gold and High School tournaments forced me to overcome the attire deal, and college/fun bowling broke me of the warm-up/practice ritual. I'm still adamant about bringing my own equipment and being fiercely focused and competitive. Sorry, that's what 11 years of competitive league play and a 200+ average does to you. I play to win, or I don't play at all.
The pinball interest came back when I discovered Visual Pinball on the net. I started designing my own tables... again. This time, I could play them! And since I was getting into C++ programming at the time, picking up VBScript for controlling the mechanisms and lights was a snap.
On one of my bowling trips to St. Louis in February 2002, I was introduced to DDR. It became an instant interest. I played that shit nonstop that summer, going from "What's Konamix?" to "I fucking cleared Dead End SSR *dies*" in 3 months. (I also dropped 10% of my body weight that summer, from 150 to 135. I didn't break 150 again until 2008.) Now that I had a car and a part-time job, I could travel the Greater Rockford area and get my fix. Rev'd Up, CherryVale Mall Cyberstation, and Huskies Den at NIU ftw. Janesville and Norridge trips only when Jay-D drove, and Naperville when GTC drove, because my clunker couldn't survive the interstates.
I attempted to create a DDR simulator in Visual Pinball, which was not only hilarious as shit, but successful. I was quickly introduced to Dance With Intensity (written by furries oh snap DJ Drafthorse and SimWolf) and Stepmania. Started writing my own charts for songs (I'm up to something like 150 different songs), as well as spending an ungodly amount of time learning every little nuance of the game. Song appearances, hidden codes, trivia, reverse engineering the scoring systems, advising developers on the different game options. Crazy stuff like that. When the lull hit in 2003-4, I moved on to IIDX. I still play, but after being plateaued for years, it's more of a casual hobby. I can't really improve any more, so it's slowly being relegated to only when I'm bored or stressed out.
Well, that was fun to write. I enjoy writing about this kind of stuff, especially when I know people take interest in it. I doubt many people can relate to my experiences, but hopefully it's fun to take a look at how wacky my childhood was compared to everyone else's. Maybe? I don't know.
I also have a tendency to talk about myself too much. I just want somebody to listen!
Have you or anyone you know shown signs of special-interest behaviors like this? Feel free to share your stories in the comments, I love seeing my comment counter go up, especially when I'm bored at work.
Anyway, I'm currently very interested in learning about AS, and how others have dealt with this 'gift'. I luffs my
semjay very much and know that sometimes my eccentricity puts stress on the relationship. Fortunately, we are super awesome together and still going strong! 
CLINK!!!!
I relate to signs and elements too. I'm a taurus, a bull through and through. I'm stubborn, tough to love, and hot headed. I also can be protective, self involved, and the hero if you let me. Taurus is an earth sign... I tend to think I'm "motherly" and also very sensitive. I grow but only if nurtured resulting in a bit of co-dependency.
Blah blah me me... lol. TL;DR that was neat, thanks for sharing. You're a genius, I'm just crazy.
My zodiac symbol is totally not me (Cancer). But zodiac stuff (especially other cultures') is fun to read about! Makes me wonder how they came up with that stuff
After years of actively trying to get rid of any weird eccentric behaviour (in front of people) the place my condition really hurts is social confidence. I can talk to people in a 1 on 1 conversation easily, but I feel constantly awkward, and start adding in more people, and I gradually become mute.
Yeah, so that's my contribution.