Monday, October 15, 2007

You might be an Aspie if...

This is a collection of phrases that I most identify with, in regard to its intention, motivation, theme, and meaning. Sometimes it is exact. Examples include Star Trek, South Park, Blog, and T-shirt.

"If it takes you 5 minutes to explain where the mayonnaise is in the refrigerator.....you might be an Aspie"

"If you would rather eat broken glass than go to a sorority party....you might be an Aspie"

...when someone says, "Now take a minute and picture -in your head- something or other", you wonder why it would be necessary to suggest it, because you always have pictures in your head.

...when you get old you know you will be "an old lady with cats" (or dogs, or ferrets, or lizards.

...you want to sky-dive or bungee jump, but you wouldn't do it if you had to drive through traffic to get there.

...if when you were a kid, and other kids wanted to play ball, you wanted to turn toy cars over and spin their wheels.

...on the one hand you think you are the most interesting person you know, but not too many other people are trying to get to know you.

...you have learned to say "why" in several different languages.

...your boss says, "Do such and such", and you can't do it until you know "why", because you are not going to waste your time on doing something that doesn't make sense.

...if you refused to let your grown son get rid of his Lego's, because you wanted to have the option of playing with them yourself again.

...you get extremely disappointed in yourself if you don't know something when you need to know it because you really "SHOULD" know that.

...you choose the grocery aisle that you go down based on whether or not there are any other people (children) in that aisle.

...you knew years ahead of time that you weren't going to the senior prom. (I did not know what it was)

...the word "Hallmark" makes you think "When you care enough to send the very best",
and you can remember tons of those kinds of "ad" lines and you use them in everyday speech.

...if you recognize yourself in the "you might be an Aspie" jokes and you don't know if you should laugh or cry.

...you are middle aged and going to college and petrified by the question "what is your major" because you don't know if it should be, English, Russian, Art, Art History, Psychology or whatever your next interest will be, OR if you should pursue your own personalized major program in Eremitic Studies or Anti-Social Science.

...if the thought, "there has to be a pattern to this" is a major theme of your life.

...if you were a treker long before there were such things (when the show started in 1970?, I don't remember numbers.) (10 extra points if you are a female)

...if the word "logic" goes right to your heart but the word "love" usually bounces off of it.

...if you been driving a car with someone in the passenger seat who's voice was too quiet and you reached for the volume control on the radio to turn up the the sound of their voice. (OK, that's just strange....but true)

...if you absolutely hate news reporters who go up to the grieving widow and say, "Are you sad?, tell us exactly how sad are you?". I want the widow to say, "Of course I'm sad you idiot, see the tears? My husband was just shot, fool!" They're just a bunch of vampires, the news media. (rant)

...if you think cataclysm is a really great word. Catamaran, catatonic, catalyst, Catalan, catalogue, catastrophe all great words, and they start with CAT, which is neat, too. Patagonia is a neat word, too. And sassafras.

...if you think an old fashioned egg beater is a very cool toy.

...you go to see a psychologist a bit worried that he might tell you that you are imagining that you are on the autism spectrum, and the visit goes well, especially when you catch yourself watching the ceiling fan blades lazily spinning....then you go look in the fancy shops nearby and about an hour of this window shopping, etc., you realize that you have had your sweater on inside out since you left home...
and then you can't wait to tell the psychologist that you did that because it's funny and so typically Aspie.
--you make sure to describe the whole sweater on inside-out incident on your blog.

You get irritated when people come up to talk to you when you are doing something important like; staring at a wall, trying to find a space in your mind that is not overwhelmed by noise and imposing people with their desire to converse.

...you always liked the phrase "deja vu" and have experienced it, of course, but you were really happy when you learned about,"jamais vu", because it's always nice to know that the psychologists have picked pretty sounding French words to describe your problems.

...your teacher commands every one in the room to pair-off to discuss a topic and you are extremely relieved that no one wants to be your partner.

...you are extremely grateful for online tax preparation because:
a)no one has to try to decipher your handwriting,
b)you don't have to see or talk to anyone to file your taxes, not even the people at the post office...


...you feel somehow privileged to have insights into the subject of cultural anthropology because you have been studying anthropo's your whole life trying to figure out what makes their culture tick. (it's Temple Grandin who compared herself an "anthropologist on Mars")

...you have a t-shirt with the word Aspie on it.

...you tell people you have a "neurodevelopmental disorder" and you kind of hope that they don't ask what that means.

...you think "Cure Autism Now" ought to be called "Eliminate Autistics Now" and it makes you mad.

YMBAAI: You find it extraordinarily annoying to hear someone say the same thing multiple times, but you do that same thing yourself, that is, say things multiple times. Did I tell you that I hate hearing other people say things multiple times, but that I do the very same thing? Multiple times?

…the Jehovah's Witnesses missionaries who rang your doorbell fell over in a dead faint when you answered the door because you were so engrossed with whatever, and you like being nude in the privacy of your own house and rushed to answer the door without putting on a bathrobe.

…you go into a tizzy because a family member who ought to know better gives as a birthday present something you already have.

…your idea of a date is to lie under the stars with your partner of the evening and discuss which of the visible stars will become a black hole the soonest.

…you almost go into a panic when you discover that a picture or other wall-mounted item is hanging 1° off perpendicular, and you feel compelled to straighten it out, even if it's not in your own home.

…you not only line things up, you always line them up in a symmetrical arrangement.

…you're disappointed that the latest close-approaching meteor is not, after all, going to hit Earth because you've been fascinated by cataclysms and catastrophism ever since you first saw "When Worlds Collide" and it scared the bejeebers out of you, and you really want to see what a real cataclysm would be like.

…you tend to regard the world as your personal scientific experiment, with you playing Mad Scientist to the hilt.

...you constantly forget taking the trash out even if you walk past it all the time because it isn't on your mental agenda of things to do.

..if you spend hours trying to figure out how someone could find a meaning in your words that was not there.

...if you do your walks and exercises at night because it is quiet then and hardly anyone else around.

...if you are cleaning up the house and later find you put the oranges in the shoe-holder and the shoes in the fridge.

...if your brain decides to take a leave when ever you are asked to do an unpleasant task.

...you are at a tour at a science museum and can't help correcting your touring guide on matters of quantum mechanics.

...you don't realize that people call you names because "stupid idiot" has nothing to do with you.

....you sit around trying to decide what to work on today, and by the time you are done deciding the day is over.

...you understand a certain figure of speech because it was explained to you, but you still wonder what idiot could come up with something like that.

...you consider the pleasantries of others just a waste of time.

...you follow rules to the letter - but only if they make sense to you.

You manage to make out a list of shopping items to buy, and you hate making lists. You feel all proud of yourself for your accomplishment until you realize once you're at the store that you left it on the kitchen counter.

YOU MAY BE AN ASPIE IF you have dreams of communicating with extraterrestrials and nightmares about chatting with the next-door neighbor.

YMBAAI you'd rather endure a root canal (without anesthesia) than watch certain cartoons. (10 points extra if your peeves EXCLUDE modern works like "South Park")

YMBAAI you prefer a collegiate library over a public one because their inventory is more to your taste and you have less chance of having your attention interrupted by a screaming two-year-old.

YMBAAI you feel like rallying for the free-speech rights of the Road Runner (there's gotta be more to him than just "beep-beep").

YMBAAI you find it easier to remember something reasonable like "acetylsalicylic acid" than some arcane, fancy-shmantz word like "aspirin".

YMBAAI people think of you when they see a film of Jews praying at the Wailing Wall--and you're Presbyterian.

YMBAAI you indicate diary entries by Star-Date.

YMBAAI you've often been caught dancing to supermarket music.

YMBAAI you firmly believe that amyotropic laterosclerosis should be named for Stephen Hawking instead of Lou Gehrig.

YMBAAI your life's ambition is to produce "Webster's Dictionary--The Movie".

YMBAAI you call Time and Temperature because it has the only voice that won't call you bad names.

YMBAAI when someone recommends that you ask Jesus into you heart, you form a mental picture of him changing the wallpaper in your left atrium.

...you go to the paper shop to buy a newspaper but you can't decide whether to get the Herald or the Telegraph, then you remember news is all lies and nonsense so you go home again without a paper.

...you get all cleaned up and dressed for a party and just before you walk out the door you remember you hate parties so you switch on the computer, put on a t-shirt and get settled in for the night.

You like defraging your hard drive so you can watch little blue squares lining up for a couple of hours.

1 comment: