Reflection: Still Here

Signing a lease one more time. Moving into a second year in an under-200 square foot studio that has been better to me than its larger predecessor. My favorite apartment/unit ever, if you go back a bit, was an attic. But this little room with the corridor and the separate bathroom: It's of a scale that's easy to decorate. And putting it online motivates me to do just that. My problem has never been finding the wherewithall to function; it's finding the motivation. It's hard for me to do things because they feel comfortable or because they create aesthetic pleasure. It doesn't click; it doesn't connect. The question has already been: But who will see it? Who will it please? I can't live life as a tree in a forest. If no one hears, I don't make a sound. If no one watches, nothing is tidy. There's this great need to be observed by loved ones. And the great motivator has always been: for you. Living my life online makes me live it brighter and more according to custom.

So, understanding that, maybe it wouldn't come as such a surprise to persons from long ago co-op days that one of the niche topic areas I have moved into, on Squidoo and elsewhere, is designing small spaces. This is the recent Squidoo page that has gone the highest: Shabby Chic Studio Apartment

Reflection: A Star for Passing Brain Chemistry

Talking about purple star lenses again -- but I'm not bragging. It's the stories surrounding the stories that I want to talk about. Someone gave Struggling to Pass Brain Chemistry a purple star. I wrote that story, as some will remember, four or five years back. I later made the choice to self-publish it on Squidoo. Putting it up on Squidoo... well, that gave the story some things it wouldn't have had otherwise, and I'm talking about something more here than giving it a music soundtrack. The comments on that lens... they're a substantial part of why I put it where I did. It went on Squidoo to collect acceptance, and Squidangel blessings. It did that. And a while later it got its purple star.

Those purple star awards... I'm not the only person on Squidoo who has gotten several in a short span of time since it became a pay-it-forward program. I also want to tell a story about... well, not about the first two, but about what I was doing when I got the email notifications. I was checking the one email I don't get scared to check, and I was looking for an email from almost the only friend who has that email address. (And why not? He is on so many shared networks. He couldn't die or do anything noteworthy without it hitting all the major networks. What's an email? But I digress.) Anyway, though there are more purple stars than LOTDs ('lens of the days') in Squidoo-land, it's still considered something of an honor, and boosts your rank and all that. So a lot of people would have reacted (do react) with some excitement -- to the first at least. My response was, "But I'm not looking for a purple star! I'm looking for for a note from..."

Still monotropic after all these years: Laser-light and not incandescent. It's about what I'm looking for, and what I care about, and not what the world chooses to give me. This (the end of this paragraph is an edit, some time later) can sound snobby of me, but no. In 'real life' people have sometimes thought I was not altogether there because I didn't respond to something in a normal ways... like maybe I didn't even hear or observe. I just don't tend to have normal emotional responses to things -- good or bad -- if it's not something that was on my radar. I'm not 'deflected'... though I can surely act if I get inspired.

There are a lot of words I didn't know when I first penned the "Brain Chemistry" piece. But, with the exception of folks' names, I've changed only a few. I may not stand by the labels worn in those days, but I stand by the rest.

Reflection: The Art of Research

I was wondering what the appropriate post was to follow that last one. I decided to share a bit of writing (something I have been doing quite a bit of actually). I started my first hired freelance gig just about a week ago. I've done 10 articles so far for $15 a piece. The articles take some time to research, but it's a pretty good beginning gig, the sort of thing that it would have helped to have in the summer when things kept falling through. Now... well, I make a lot more in an hour subbing in the schools, but jobs are still a bit scarce in the 3rd week, and... it's tough sometimes. There have been times... ah, but that's a story for another day...

Now then. I have a few tabs open to research on cardiac sonographers -- job description, certification requirements in different states -- but before I tackle another set of articles, I want to get this posted. Yeah, I'm writing about medical licenses. As a sample of research and writing in the medical field, I had sent a link to... well, it was actually first ever Squidoo lens.

The lens I'm posting here today is also research-heavy. It goes back about 6 months, was an award winner recently -- a different kind of Squidoo award. The"purple star" award on Squidoo is now done as a "pay it forward" receive one and then nominate another lens thing. It was quite a few months ago that Addy first dropped in on Reclassifying Mental Disorders and wrote a comment I kind of had to laugh over. 'Bout a week ago she paid it forward.

Memory: From the Days of Steve Salamander

As we near another July 4, here is a ghost of a July 4th past: "Your Hometown" -- an excerpt from "Til Steve Salamander Returns" The story was composed my first summer in Seattle and published last summer. More than a little bit of my heart is in the story... and the place and the characters therein.

P.S. Working in HTML mode on this one because of the embedding code. Having quite a time getting that photo sized right -- so no photo for now.

Reflection: Summer Sunshine

I woke up this morning from one of those scary dreams where someone died and I'm not sure who. With Benadryl in my system, I went back to sleep for quite a while -- and the next dream cut through some of the turmoil but not all.

Long later I woke up to Summer Sunshine. Step Into Seattle Farmers Market was today's Squidoo Summer Sunshine winner -- $99 to my selected charity (the Grameen Foundation) and $99 to me. Well -- the person yesterday evening who I gave almost the last $.50 in my purse to for a crucial phone call said the karma would come back. He said the karma comes back when you think you can't take another step.

The next blog entry might (once again) appear under this one. Some posts I start but don't finish right off.

Reflection: Perched Here in Seattle

I wanted to leave that previous post up a few days because there is (very much!) a message in it to a few folks. I may have quite a lot to write come tomorrow, but today I will say just a wee bit here. Because... Well, I worry about people when I can't reach them. So if anyone returns the favor...

As hard as I may have been to reach lately (if anyone but the Subfinder is trying!) I am right here in Seattle. And -- though my mind is quite far away -- I'll post a link to a bit of the land outside my window: Step Into Seattle Farmers Market

Getting ready to meditate now...

Reflection: A Global Netbook

The picture is of my six-year-old niece with my netbook, taken when I was in Arizona. I was tutoring ESL via petite netbook this morning (a Cambridge student of Chinese background).

Just occasionally someone sends a session request via eduFire for a subject I don't necessarily promote a lot, like conversational ESL. I thought I might encounter difficulties this morning -- or issues regarding mechanics being in and out of the apartment (loudly) replacing the pipes -- but no, it went quite smoothly. (Hey, one needs to earn a bit of money to survive -- and it's been tough.)

Now about the talented little netbook that does tutoring... it has a Squidoo page: My Acer Netbook (Snookums). One of the first I put up after getting my giant squid status.

Reflection: The Paper Doll Page Rides Again...

Remember when I said paper dolls weren't such a funny topic for a Squidoo page? Well, putting the paper dolls online up was rather a pragmatic Squidoo move, actually. I have 54 lenses at this point (a 4 lens cushion above what I need to apply for Giant Squid status this round) and for several weeks now my top lens has been A Paper Doll Childhood. (It peaked at about a 3,000 lensrank, and is closer to 4,000 now.)

If a person interacts on the Squidoo forums and leaves comments on others' 'lenses', from time to time other Squidoo-ers will click through onto their profile. Many people browse through the lens list and visit whatever topics interest them; some, though, are more inclined to check out your top-ranked page. I would say that male Squid are less likely to drop in on a lens about paper dolls, though. It's generally quite a girlie crew that comments on that one.

Not today. Today someone wrote that he was going to be the first and possible only guy to leave a comment on my paper doll lens. He mentioned that he was trying to make a living as a freelancer and that he liked to read other people's internet writing and see what worked for them.

Well, here is one life lesson that can be drawn from my experiences with Squidoo: There is a place for people to simply be themselves. Paper doll pages can do quite well. The lens that made Lens of the Day and thus peaked highest (briefly in the top 1,000) was quite a personal one, Making Sense of Monotropism. That lens has had its champions.

As for making money with online writing, though... well, at this point it's a few dollars here and there. It's on the rise, but it's still quite low. Times are tough -- and tight -- for so many reasons. Putting out the money for a Greyhound ticket is tough. But I've got most of the remaining pieces to my kindergarten-aged niece's dollhouse packed, I've got a shoulderbag case for Snookums-the-netbook to ride in... and it looks like I'll begin my Arizona trip in a few hours. I'll be gone a week or so.

Reflection: Mirroring Abilities and Disabilities

My left hand is proud of its schoolwork and delighted with the comments and smiley face that the right hand left for it in red ink. (Do you see the title there in gold gel marker?)

Seriously, though, this relates to some issues that are important to me. I just put up a lens on Squidoo titled Neurological Disorders: Differing Abilities and Gifts. I've got some lenses featured on it that are my own, and also half a dozen that are by other Squidoo 'lensmasters'. (A lot of us do feature or link to each other's writings; it's a way of helping one another... and the site.)

I've read different statistics; I believe one thing I read said that Squidoo was one of the top 100 websites in the U.S. -- and it's very much in the black in these trying times. It can be a good thing to work not only to increase one's share of the pie, but the size of the pie -- especially when one finds many pages that are quality and that they believe in.

Among the premises of that page I just put up: that multiple anomalies tend to reflect an underlying condition, and that anomalous brain structuring may come with mirrored disability and giftedness (usually in a metaphorical sense... and not quite so graphic as what you see in the picture).

Memory (From Before My Time): Women Who Flew

The woman in the musical slideshow is Bessie Coleman, a famous aviator from before any of our time -- I think somebody selected a stunning song for that video. Bessie was African American, but I do see a bit of resemblance (appearance or aspect?) between some of her pictures and long long ago pictures of my mother.

One of the more surprising things about 'the mother I never really knew' is that she earned a pilot license. I have a new piece on Squidoo titled Pioneering Women Pilots . The name may change to "My Mother and Other Women Who Flew" particularly if my brother is able to put his hands on enough artifacts.

Reflection: Memoir of...

I've been continuing to ask what it's appropriate to post this week... and I've been continuing to put up memoir.

Ravenna-the-big-old-computer didn't explode when its monitor did. I was able to retrieve a flash memoir, "Playing With Fire", and use it as part of a Squidoo lens, Memoir of a Hyporesponsive Child which continues the 'underwhelment' theme. I'd written some time back in "Tagging: A Metaphor for Monotropism": "This is just a theory, but it seems to fit. Deficient in body signals, deficient in the very mechanics of attraction (interest) and repulsion, I just want my favorite. I just want whatever it is I've tagged as my favorite."

I didn't know how much scientific evidence there was to back up the idea of hyporesponsive sensory processing and high-intensity thresholds. I didn't know the key words to enter, but a week or two ago, I stumbled into some material. So this resulting piece is a combination of memoir and scientific ramblings and annotation.

My brother will remember the girl who appears in the opening module of this Squidoo lens, though I did change the name. He asked me if he could access my lenses from this blog. Well, not all of them -- and especially not easily -- but I'm going to add some more to the sidebar list shortly.

Reflection: High Intensity Threshold

A quote to begin this post, from "Regulation Disorder of Sensory Processing": "These children require high-intensity sensory input before they are able to respond. They are quiet and watchful at times and may appear withdrawn and difficult to engage."

If ones sees someone with that withdrawn, difficult to engage manner, it may not be that they're overwhelmed by sensory stimuli or social interaction. Quite the opposite. They may be starved for the very the things they seem not to respond to -- starved largely by their own neural wiring. They may have such a high threshold for intensity that most of what's around them passes below that threshold... too far below to motivate an emotional response.

I have sometimes gotten 'Squid Angel blessings' for pieces that I haven't specifically asked for them for. It's when I really, really want people to see a piece that I do post it on the angels forum. It's been quite a while. I did it with the monotropism piece, and I also said something on this blog, to the effect of 'friends, please be my squid angels, too' -- meaning help me with my goal of having people see this.) I'm doing that again. Here's Processing Disorders: The Understimulated Brain.

Photo Credit: FreeDigitalPhotos

Reflection: Lenses and Lensographies

I type my blog entries at home, but often I do most of the composing out and about. A few hours back (on a bus) my mind was tossing around a possible 'clever lead-in' for this post. Tired now, I decided to forego the witticisms, and just discuss and give links to some off-site writings...

I put up a second Williams Syndrome piece, Williams Syndrome and Music. I've got several videos included in the piece-- it can be good to enter some more esoteric key word strings sometimes: The video of the little girl giving a rocking (literally!) rendition of "Jesus Loves Me" has been viewed by many people, but the fifteen-year-old with the piano compositions... well, that hasn't been watched much at all. A lot of quality things get buried on YouTube and Google and life.

One of the other things I put up... well, it's a term most people wouldn't recognize because some 'squid' invented it. Most people who write 'seriously' for Squidoo put up a lensography: They arrange their writings/lenses by topic and maybe write a bit of autobiography around them. It's for one's friends and fellow writers, moreso than for the world at large, but it can help people find your writings. I put up Evening Nigh Reflections Lensography. (The web personas are sharing an account, but that doesn't mean they're going to share a lensography -- ah, no, this one belongs to Evening Nigh.)

I've had that lensography up for the better part of a week, and it's the one, among the very recent ones, that's doing best in Squid-Land -- it has a few 'squid angel' blessings at this point. There are links on it to a few pieces that I haven't discussed on this blog. Someone might want to locate A Paper Doll Childhood and print out some dolls for my little niece; the little niece who's old enough to wield scissors will find some interesting cutting there. (I'll add that paper dolls is not such an odd topic for a lens -- there are a handful of modestly successful lenses on the topic on Squidoo -- and that one is off to a pretty good start, too.)

Reflection: Listening to Caffeine

Here is my Listening to Caffeine lens -- my second-to-most-recent one. Monday is one of two days that I am available to sub all day. I didn't find a position today, though I sorely needed it. If I had been up plugged into the online Subfinder at 5:30 this morning (as I was on Thursday) I would have had a better chance of finding something. Over the course of the early morning hours, positions briefly open up -- very briefly some mornings.

By the time it was obvious that I was going to spend the day at home... well, I was writing away. The writing gig would be very supplemental in the income department, even if I manage, over time, to push a few more lenses into the upper tier. Still, I can point the educational ones -- like the one I wrote this morning -- at my website and eduFire profile. And of course there's a song on the Animoto site -- which I may set my Farmer's Market slides to -- called "Love is Better Than Money". Ah, that it is. Still, it's better if I don't run out of money altogether.

Now speaking of markets -- and of caffeine -- Super C energy drink is back at Madrona Grocery Outlet, and I should stock up. I gather that it's more commonly people with ADHD who can drink coffee or energy drink and say, "Well, that was a nice nightcap -- yawn." I don't have ADHD, but I have said for a long time, that my brain is distinguished by very unusual attention patterns, moreso than by anxiety per se. Isn't it interesting that the very brain chemicals that are stereotypically associated with anxiety -- the so-called 'fight or flight' chemicals -- tend to... mellow me out a bit? I do take diphenhydramine, but I'm more likely to konk out on half a dose if I have a little caffeine in my system, too.

Image credit: Saut Eman, Free Digital Photos

Reflection: A Musical Addendum

It was right after I wrote Listening to Lenses Again that I put up another music page. Some people may wonder why I haven't put up more of those. Well, I have trouble checking artists' web pages. (It has to do with that odd phobic fear of things happening to people. I am protective of my favored artists, in a helpless sort of way.)

In response to a Squidoo challenge, I did manage to call up the web page of a second or third favorite artist and I wrote Listening in on Joshua Kadison. This one has 3 Amazon MP3 modules, and quite a bit of video. It also has a lot of my own writing -- and I hope you can appreciate how very audience-driven it is.

Today I've been writing "Listening to Caffeine" (No, actually the caffeine isn't playing piano, or singing either) and I'll link to that one sometime later.

Reflection: Listening to Lenses Again

Two of my 'lenses', both music-related, were quietly added to the sidebar a couple days back. Yup, I've been listening to lenses again. The one that I most enjoy listening to is Mental Illness: Songs For the Journey. I included an Amazon MP3 module with a dozen or so songs, and also three videos whose creators must have poured a lot of care into them. Two are music slideshows. The "Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot" video gives pretty much a line by line interpretation of Sting's song, and I would describe it as quite clever... "I'll Stand By You" I would describe as absolutely stunning. It's one of those YouTube videos that has been watched about a gazillion times and may well have more 'page rank' than anything else its creator has ever put on the internet.

The other webpage, Songs of My Childhood, is lighter fare. That piece also includes an Amazon MP3 module and a few videos; part of the text came from an essay I wrote a few years back. It was a response to a challenge posted on the forums... and if I were someone's brother, I would view a particular photo, and what it says under the photo, with a sense of humor.

Reflection: A Matter of Trust

Something I wrote in my most recent post could, I suppose, be construed as bragging, and something I write at the bottom of this one could as well. Ah, that's not the intent, though! Before I resume my account of current events, I want to dip way, way into the past...

I was bullied a lot when I was little. The situation began to change when I moved from rural Virginia to the Phoenix suburbs. Some people say that peer issues are at their worst in junior high, but it was during those years that I began to find a niche. With each transition (into high school, into adulthood) I met with more acceptance and more friendship. By the early years of high school, I had already learned that I could build bridges with words -- by telling stories that were personal indeed. Sure there are people in this world who will look down on me, but my tendency is to believe there are people worth trusting ever single place I go -- not everyone is, no, but lots of people, and they're everywhere. They're in Florida, and the Phillipines, and Scotland -- and I'm speaking now from experience, not conjecture.

Making Sense of Monotropism won Lens of the Day at Squidoo a couple days ago. There are now more than 40 comments, written by Squidoo-ers, on that lens. I had to press "load more comments" several times to read them. (I had been aware before the LOTD thing that the lens had been tweeted; one person had commented she encountered the piece when a fellow 'lensmaster' tweeted it.)

If people are surprised at what I've written on Squidoo, it's because they are looking at my behavior through the lens of their own experience -- something we all of course to some degree do. Know: when I tell tales of long-ago childhood, I write in the present tense, but that doesn't mean the transcient concerns of a long-ago little girl are my concerns. I share those stories with particular people because I want to share them, not because I think they are the only person in the world who will accept 'poor broken little me'. I suppose to some extent, I've had myself, and my writing, to blame when people have held that belief -- but I think that people are actually more likely to hold the belief if they themselves see people as untrustworthy.

My favorite book of the middle school years -- my brother's as well -- was The Young Unicorns. A favorite line: "When our trust is broken, as it always is, the only response that is not destructive is to trust again, not blindly, you understand, but fully aware..."

PS I just realized that in my previous post I linked to Placefy Geography Game when I meant to link to "Promising Lensmaster of 2010". Whoops. Well, I've corrected it now.

Reflection: A Bit of Recognition

The writing I am linking to here, Promising Lensmasters of 2010, is by a 'Squid' who is the mentor for nonprofit organizations and an honorary angel. The piece she featured of mine is one that I didn't post on the forums or, fot that matter, here. It contains some personal writing and some research references -- one section was reprinted from this blog ("Please Don't Email the Drops").

I've put up several pages since then, and a couple I do want to talk about here in this blog. That, too, will probably precede the next "soapbox post" that I write. I guess I have a bit of blog cklog.

PS It looks like Susanna is going to be following -- and giving some help to -- the people she's taken under her wings... er, tentacles. I went back and added a "With thanks" module near the bottom of that one lens., and I included the picture you see here -- rather an interesting photoeffects find.

Memory: Struggling to Pass Brain Chemistry

I was fixing to publish this piece when I wrote in "Evening Nigh's Year in Reflection" that I would continue to be 'the author of people's lives' (aren't we all?) and that I would strive, in the words of The Moody Blues, to "Say it With Love".

I actually wrote this particularly piece a few years back; at the time, I made several unsuccessful attempts to publish it in lit journals.

I went over Struggling to Pass Brain Chemistry again and again with a fine tooth comb before I added media and resources and posted it to Squidoo. I waited until the piece had received a few comments (also a couple Squid Angel blessings) before posting it here. I wanted to do right by the piece. The piece, in its new incarnation has 10 illustrated text sections; I used stock photos, of course, running most of them through photoeffect programs. Only one text section is new -- it's a short one that discusses the limitations of labels and of medication... and it's accompanied by the same picture you see here in this blog entry.

It's good, from a pragmatic standpoint, that I've got some real publishing credits (lit journal and anthology) but I'm happy to have "Struggling to Pass Brain Chemistry" under the Squidoo domain, dressed up, like various other lenses, in resources and media and one of those little Amazon MP3 modules.

PS Picked up another one from someone -- down in the Philipines, I believe -- who has commented on other lenses, and is part of the new "Angels crew". She not only read, but listened to the whole thing, and what she wrote was really kind. (The volunteer Angels are of course a part of how the site maintains its integrity, too.)

Reflection: Of Appearance and Illusion

I was reading a blog by a woman who's autistic. She said that people naturally assumed she was high-functioning when they met her online, and that they assumed she was low-functioning when they met her in real life. Well, reading her narratives, I doubted many people would think she was autistic at all; they'd think she was simply articulate and perceptive. The woman expressed herself in writing much better than the average person does, and was probably more astute than average in her discussions of human behavior. But if you look at her features and facial expressions, it's very easy to imagine she has a developmental disorder. Well, I don't doubt that there were autistic symptoms (sensory overload, difficulty reading body language, or even speaking) that came out in face to face interaction. Yet I also wonder to what extent it would affect her to simply be looked at the way people probably did.

How many times in my own life have people looked through me, so certain that their social perceptions and capabilities were beyond mine that it didn't even merit thought? And haven't I done the same, looking across the aisle of a bus as if from some great height? I've written about neurological irregularities before, in Modeling the Latest in Hypertonic Arm Wear and Sometimes You Picture Me. I won't spend a lot of time discussing 'stereotypies' today -- but I will link to a bit of writing. I think I've written 3 lenses since the last time I linked to one in a post! There's one titled Teaching Critical Literacy With the Ugly Duckling that seems on the surface like something written by my teacher persona that wouldn't be of interest to friends. I'm not on my soapbox in the overt way that I am here, but there's quite a bit of me in that piece. There's also a bit of theme music and some stunning swan and duck pictures, that no, I didn't take. (Of course I've got my own snapshots and Animoto shorts in Step Into Ravenna Creek Ravine.)

picture credit