I’m honestly still in anger. Especially as my dad was known as one of the state’s foremost experts in adolescent psychology when I was growing up. Nothing? Seriously nothing? I get that in the '80s, the cutoff was basically “can you tie your shoes at 5?” – and if so, you were just weird. If not, short bus.

But I seriously think my childhood could have gone a lot more smoothly had there been some sort of proper resource as opposed to throwing me into as many extracurriculars as temporally possible.

All that did was make me unable to talk with my peers at school because the more interesting stuff was happening elsewhere. Let’s just say things didn’t improve from there.

My music collection is on my phone. If I’m not on Wi-Fi, I’m generally listening to music, so no data needed. Basically, it’s just notifications while I’m out and about. I certainly don’t care to watch videos on my phone! I can send that tab to my computer and watch when I get home.

Some people are pretty much always on Wi-Fi and never stream anything on a phone. I struggle to use 500MB/month of cellular data, so the $15/month plan is overkill by far.

I’m not “obsessed” with Mint; it’s just been reliable service for a decade for the same price (data went from 2GB to 6GB in that time). The cheapest broadband around here is $100/month, so this would be less than half the price and includes phone service. With inflation being how it is, I figured I’d point out something that could save people money.

It’s a really long con, then.

Not at all the timeline, but you’ve shown the level of curiosity you have for the story and are content to construct what the piece must have been like. That is called chosen ignorance.

And it’s your right to live that way. Just don’t make it sound enlightened.

No way to cure a disinterest in clicking the link. You’re missing out on a lot.

The excerpt I provided is. The story is very much not, unless you’re objecting to the nature of interviewing a source.

I blame the Bypass Paywalls Clean add-on.

I’m not sure the extent of your experience with the sort of “sources” I ran into searching specifically for “midlife diagnosis.” Another user has pointed out the same sort of disjoint, so perhaps I’m being unclear.

These videos very strongly imply (stopping just sort of demanding) an affinity to all manner of behaviours as prerequisites for being allowed in the room to hear the conversation. The essential conclusion is “if hearing this doesn’t make you feel better and understand yourself more, you are neurotypical and invading our space.”

So I’m looked at oddly by society for not just accepting lies regardless of lived experience, and doing research on neurodiversity lands me as not being sufficiently neurodivergent and therefore not part of the community.

Schroedinger’s neurodivergence. Of course that’s going to piss me off more than just being attacked on a single front, so considering that reaction to be uncalled for strikes me as the sort of thing I get from “normal” people by the very people claiming that they can help me understand myself.

And there it is, stated directly:

there’s no call to be this upset about it.

Might as well say “you suck at being neurodivergent and are doing it wrong. Go away and leave us to brag about stimming.”

My frustration is that this was the best I could find in about four hours. It’s all people who have ASD or are social workers, and the intent is not to inform, but rather to coddle. I get that’s necessary for many people, but having it to the exclusion of all else (save for a couple of lectures that do not provide overviews) served up by The Algorithm is doing a grave disservice to everyone else.

The basic feeling I get is “if you don’t like the terminology, something is wrong with you.” So the target demo performs neurodiversity correctly, whereas I emphatically do it wrong and don’t belong in the community.

There’s no situation in which that’s an encouraging starting point for better understanding.

I have a visceral reaction to such terms because they’re used with pride by content creators. So if I don’t? I’m not being understanding or welcoming; I am the enemy. Do I have repetitive habits? A few … if I’m packing cigarettes, it’s 9 or 13 times. Not for any reason, just muscle memory; not a compulsion. I’m pretty sure just about anyone has done something while waiting, annoyed or bored like twirling a pencil or tapping a foot. I still rub the ears of my stuffed Snoopy while falling asleep, and sometimes subconsciously during the day.

My irritation is this seeming excitement ready to call that all “stimming” and wanting to talk about how they “stim.” It’s reductionist and brings a whole bunch of ordinary behaviour under the umbrella of an in-group term. Not a great look for those of us who aren’t like that – and it makes the visible face look pretty fucking juvenile.

Because apparently I’m the first adult to have it pointed out that I’m neurodivergent. These videos are somehow a meta insult. “Here’s what’s wrong with you that you don’t fit into society. Now, here’s what wrong with you that you don’t conform to our words. Act like one of us or fuck off.”

I asked Mistral, and the first round was completely ASD-centric. After pointing out this is exactly the sort of flattening I wish to avoid, I got a different set of responses.

Here’s the first for anyone curious. And if you’re irritated by the malformed glyphs – as I initially was – those are ligatures (fi, fl) that should have been handled by a script.

No Kings is also on Bluesky, though they have fewer than 500 followers, somehow.

Shoplift diapers, we’ll take take of the demand problem.

I’d missed having a cat around since having to rehome Clovis ahead of moving into my van three years ago. The cat in the house I’m living in took a bit to warm up to me, but I now have rather the opposite problem. Literally a minute after waking up today, she hopped onto the bed and proceeded to stay here for 10½ hours.

As any proper cat does, she vehemently dislikes my laptop and finds her positioning invalid without at least one paw able to tap my trackpad if not taking up most of the keyboard with her front half. And she is not a fan of being moved, nor is she receptive to gentle nudging, nor does she care if I leave the room to hang out downstairs … I return to the room, and there she is, right where I left her.

Last night was an unexpected bonfire with two of the other people involved in the commune project, one of whom I’d not yet met and the other being the woman who vacated my room and once spent a night in my van checking my electrical system.

We all got along like a house on fire, giving each other shit immediately after meeting the new guy. Much drinking and smoking ensues, and apparently the woman and I were going at each other enough verbally that one remark was “Jesus, why don’t you two just fuck already?” (Answer: She’s smitten with her girlfriend of a few months, and apparently the night in my van was actually a test to see if I respected boundaries well ahead of the housing offer. We had a fair amount of time to ourselves as the other two headed off to the garage.)

So, things proceed apace. They’re going to a pagan camping event next weekend that I can’t afford, so although I was invited, it’s not doable given the issues my ex caused by stealing $300 in September. But I’m in Arizona for my dad’s memorial the following week anyway, so I could use a quiet weekend first instead of going into full-on burner mode and flying out three days later.

It’s cool to know that the people I’m going to be around are exactly the sorts of people I’d pick if I had a choice. When Ra went inside at one point, I mentioned that I felt really lucky to have been invited to join, and the guy said, “She’s always on the lookout for her people, and she never chooses wrong.” That’s a serious skill.

I certainly can’t complain that life is boring.

Meta and Google seem totally fine with other people creating things while they get all the profit. “Reach” means very little sans traffic.

Full-serve was largely gone by the late '80s (even Oregon became Mini-serve; gas got pumped, but no windshield cleaning and checking on fluids). When I’d visit my grandparents, they’d always go to the one remaining gas station in town with full-serve as an option, and I thought it odd that they had someone do it for them. But the tech wasn’t ready yet to take card payments at pumps, so there was a (somewhat long) window where it was self-serve but still on the honor system, with laws specifically geared toward drive-offs.

“Pain at the pump” enjoyed its moment in the limelight (and was quickly overused) when “pay at the pump” was being widely rolled out and gas prices were surging to absurd levels like $1.39. (Before that, you pumped your gas, then went inside and paid.)

UNFTR is definitely must-watch to my mind. Kinda paints the Omar “raid” in a different light.