The Alternate Lexicon
From the monthly archives: January 2010
An update on the glasses situation:
I have exchanged convivial emails with Scott Urban, of the awesomesauce Urban Spectacles. His prices start at $650, lenses are included at cost, and all the fiddly stuff like inlays are (reasonably) more. Who has some money to give me? No?
I’ve also emailed with the Herrlich people, but no word yet on the pricing.
I’ve found a more different pair of faux-wood, though, that I sort of crave. They can be viewed here. Can I wear this shape?
Alright, first of all, I would like to whine because it is COLD DEATH HORRIBLE COLD and has been for weeks.
Look, I know that by choosing to live in the mountains of Virginia, I run the risk of both boiling in summers and getting at least one good snow a year in the winters. But it is cold and terrible and death and I think there’s a definite risk of frostbite at this point. I never lived anywhere colder, so having temperatures in the teens and twenties–that’d be in the -12 to -5ish range for you celcius lovers–for more than a day or two at a time brings out unprecedented levels of whining. Also, the radiator? Not so hot. Space heater ftw.
This wasn’t actually intended to be a long whinge about how cold it is, except that that lyric got into my head, so here we are.
What I intended to write about is how much I want some wooden glasses. See, my job does not yet know I am leaving–something I plan to leave to the last minute–but I do. I know that it took me 8 months of varying degrees of intensity of searching to get a job back in 2008. I know that I am pretty much disqualified from buying private insurance because of the migraine issue, not to mention this pesky autism stuff, and I’m too old to get back on my mom’s insurance (also, not a student right this second). Between trying to remember to make a dental appointment and worrying about how the gabapentin, rather than making me drowsy, is making me an insomniac, I got it into my head that I need to drop a couple hundred and buy some glasses.
My insurance is good, as far as insurance goes. The copays are not horrible, the premiums are not horrible. I have vision and dental, which is more than most people (should have taken advantage of this earlier, but I only remember going to 2 dentists–I’m sure I went to one as a small child in Atlanta, but I have no memory of this–and seeing anyone else scares me). I bought glasses pretty much as soon as my insurance kicked in when I started this job, but since my ‘scrip is stable, I’d like to get another pair before I quit. Insurance pays for 40% of my total, flat. My lenses are cheap, because I am largely not blind, and the only special stuff I like is anti-glare.
After trying on a bunch of glasses and coming across a pair I quite liked, I started to really think about wooden glasses and how badass that would be. My first stop was Urban Spectacles, which involves hand-carved custom awesomeness (my favourite pair are ‘gold star’–love the asymmetrical bridge!). However, apparently prices start at $500, and I’m not even sure if he’s making them any more–even if he is, I doubt he takes my insurance. So. Second stop was Herrlicht, a German site with very little by way of information (linked directly to my pair of choice, in the reddish wood plzthx?); I’ve no idea what they cost or if they’re still operational. Third stop, however, may have been a victory. On page 6 or 7 or 8 of my google search (“wooden glasses”) results there came this website, an online glasses retailer with a pretty good-sounding return policy and super cheap. Yeah, they’re not wood (I’d want them in brown, as it’s most wood-like), but they’re probably the closest I can afford for now. I see no mention of taking insurance, but since they’re about $60 all up I guess I can’t whine.
Is getting two pairs of glasses exhorbitant? I’m thinking yes.
Today we mourn the passing of Edward Cullenmouse the First (he sparkles in the sunlight!). Last night he appeared to be in poor but stable health:
But sometime during the night, he moved on (warning, these pictures not suitable for children or kittens):
Edward Cullenmouse the First appears to have died of a stuffing aneurysm. He will be deeply missed by his owner, Prosper.
I’m fairly certain that what I am drinking right now is the very definition of woo, some unholy combination of homeopathy and HBOT (hyperbaric oxygen therapy). And it is cracking me up.
(No, it isn’t giving me any more ‘Energy’, no matter what the label says. Yes, I bought it for 70 cents because the bottle made me laugh.)
I really like the Aspie Teacher, and need to add her to my blogroll. I usually re-discover her blog when I’m playing on the autism hub and a new post comes up, and it’s always insightful and very helpful.
I’ve been thinking about perseveration since New Year’s Eve, when I read this post by her on the subject.
The idea that perseveration happens with emotions is one I had never considered, but is so true that I read it and immediately sent it to Kitty (“Yes. This!”). I tend to think about perseveration in the way I think most people do: obsessing about a special interest and having a hard time changing topics, fixed patterns of doing things that sometimes look a bit odd (like lining up toys rather than playing with them ‘correctly’ or having to eat one’s food in a certain order), echolalia. This post has really shattered those thoughts for me, made me acknowledge the depth of my tendencies towards perseveration–even when I seem completely normal, at ease.
There isn’t a time or age in my memory which I can point to and say I didn’t have perseverative behaviour and thoughts; some level of this is probably normal, because like with all things on the autism spectrum, it’s not the case that the behaviour itself is abnormal, just the severity. I have always tended to pick up a special interest, fixate havily upon it for a varying length of time, and then let it go. I think that the way that I played with my toys was probably a little odd–I remember that I enjoyed greatly dressing my dolls, but they didn’t tend to do much on the whole. I enjoyed setting up a scene, but not creating a story and then playing them through it. I read and reread the same books (and lots of new ones, too, but there are a handful of books I still reread when I feel stressed), many well below my age and reading level (the Baby Blue Cat is always soothing). I can’t remember a time when I did not repeat conversations (or rehearse conversations to come) in my head and sometimes outloud. But much more strongly than any physical types of perseveration, I emotionally perseverate.
What this means is that when I experience a strong emotion–the type most likely for me to notice I’m feeling (1)–I tend to get stuck in a pattern. I know my friends and family must be rolling their eyes, because it’s obvious, but I’d never thought of it in these terms and it’s actually really helpful and enlightening to me. Aspie Teacher describes it as a loop, like a broken record. I think it’s sort of like those toy trains with tracks in a circle. Once things reach a certain, unspecified level of feeling–once I’m on that track–I can’t stop going around it again and again without help. That help may be time, or the right input from someone else, or a distracting thing (though distracting isn’t a good long-term fix).
Perseverating makes you feel you’re trapped in your emotions, and they go on and on because no one else understands you enough to resolve the situation. Or you’ll think the situation is sort of resolved and then a few minutes later everything comes rushing back and you’re saying the same things all over again.
I fought with Stina and Dylan, about a week before Christmas. We’re okay now, as far as I know, but thinking about perseveration in this way has helped me work out why it happened in the first place. I have an unfortunate tendency to hold a grudge (which is really just long-term perseveration and an inability to forget?) and can’t always predict the small things that will suddenly become BIG THINGS and lead to this. The trigger was pretty stupid, and definitely not worth fighting over, but I got stuck in a thought pattern of being upset and every time I thought I was done, it all rushed back to me. Trying to explain to my mom and Kitty just felt like reliving it. I could not stop thinking about what was happening and my anxieties about the situation.
Venting online is kind of like winning a battle but losing the war – you may feel a temporary boost from the sympathy you get, but it won’t help you stop perseverating.
This is so true. But I would add that venting, really at all, is not very good for me. Explaining once is enough, because after that it just becomes part of the cycle of upset.
Knowing this now, I have some hope that I’ll be better able to catch this and stop it in the future. I also will be able to explain it to my therapist and hopefully make some sense so we can work on appropriate strategies.
