I Am Made Of Mercury

Three things have happened recently that I believe have exacerbated my signs of autism and unfortunately made passing something a lot more difficult to achieve. People have now noticed something is 'up'. 

I will try to keep this as brief as I can. But I can't promise.

There was an instance during training connected to work whereby a facilitator made what I felt to be a discriminatory remark towards people with autism and other developmental differences. As a result, I got agitated and left the training to avoid a meltdown, but did return for the further two days training. Someone else brought this to my line manager and I had to write up, in detail, what had happened and disclose my difficulties and my autism. I am still waiting for an outcome from this three months later. This worries me. Who/how many people have seen or scrutinised private and personal information about me?

I decided to come off my Prozac after I was sedated to the point of wanting to go to sleep on the train platforms on the way to work, sleeping standing up and contemplating walking into traffic. I also noted my 14lb weight gain since going on Prozac.

So I ceased it and after an initial week of energy and euphoria, I was back to crying in public, at work, and rapidly lost my filter so that I saw connections to all pieces of information that I absorbed. 

Then I went out on a social night, for the very first time, with some girls I had never met before. The PG Girls were welcoming, funny, gorgeous and yet I broke over five years of sobriety (bar the odd drink every few months) by drinking solidly for nine hours so that I could do social. 

I then did something very very stupid. 

I was wearing a ring and I had taken it off and put it in my pocket for safekeeping as I was going to be crashing on a bed in the house of the one of the PG Girls who had kindly let me stay with the others at 5am. I vaguely remembering admiring a chunky black ring at some point that I saw in a kitchen. This too went in my pocket for safekeeping. Unfortunately, what I did not remember at the time, but later discovered when the girl messaged in a panic, was that this was her partner's engagement ring.

I immediately stated that I had drunkenly walked off with it and was very sorry and would return it ASAP, which I did. Along with a card and some limited edition Garbage Pail Kids stickers. 

Now, here's where it actually relates to autism.

To my mind, which has only 5% Theory of Mind (1/20 on the test), there was no longer a problem. I had explained where the ring was, apologised for a drunken walk-off and the very real fail in judgement by getting that drunk (even recognising that it was a very bad impression of myself to give) and then returned it ASAP with a card of apology. 

This girl has, of course, expressed her anger at my being trusted to stay in her house as a new person who then walked off with something of high value. I was distraught because this time I did understand what she meant and for the first time, I realised that I couldn't solve a social fuck-up this large with an apology or a practicality. The girl asked for time before she could trust me or even see me socially. She asked that I did not attend lunch with the rest of them because of this.

I then realised that I have never made friends with anyone outside of a structured environment. My friends have always arisen firstly from being around people for long periods in a stable construct. School. University classes. Shared hosues. Work places. But never befriended new people in bars and clubs. And when I was added to The PG Girls chatty Facebook group, I saw keenly how they interacted. How well they knew each other. Had jokes about Disney, knew of each other's food dislikes, children's birthdays, type of dogs they have. 

This may sound sad, but I tried to fit in by buying the things they liked. I ordered Killstar clothes I will probably look terrible in, a 'Unicorn Tears' shade of lipstick that is supposedly sold out everywhere and told them of new piercings I wanted. I do actually want these things, but now I question my motives. Is it for me or to fit in with a new crowd? 

This must be made clear. I don't mean to make them sound shallow. They're not. They're lovely, caring, fun-loving and want to look pretty and badass. 

I'm a tomboy. I always have been. I wear baggy jeans and most days just wear foundation for make-up. I like hoodies, not corsets. I don't do heels. I won't fit in with The PG Girls unless I can accept that I should just be me and stop trying to pass in a new way. They're smart enough to see through that eventually.

So what now?

I'm back on Prozac and tired and numb. My workplace support has been approved after four months though now apparently my probation must be extended, despite my work being described as 'exemplary'. I have learnt not to go to certain staff when I'm struggling because only now have they admitted that they know virtually nothing about autism and I feel that's underhand to state that you 'understand' when you later state that you actually don't know what a meltdown is.

And I'm pulling away from The PG Girls, because even though I think they're great and I'd love them to be my friends, I'm no good at starting new friendships and it's no good trying to break into an established group. I'm better on the fringes. It's chilly here, but at least I know where the line is.

New Story Published

New (at least, new to publication) story has found itself a home in Robbed of Sleep Volume 5, published by BigHugeGiant (@bighugegiant) and edited by Troy Blackford, who can be found lurking on Twitter under the handle @TBlackford3.

'Mr. Chop's House of Credit' is a story I wrote some time ago and it's always been a fond favourite, but has never found a home. Maybe its mix of gore and humour isn't for everyone, but if you like the idea of a pawnbroker's with a penchant for human organs, then it will be for you.

According to our editor, this latest anthology offers:

"Thirty-three fearful, fretful, and freakishly fanciful stories fresh from the minds of some of today’s most unstable speculative fiction authors"

I do so like this description of us RoS lot.

Click here for the e-version. Print to follow very soon.

Fankid Part 2

After I posted my previous entry, I went on Facebook and discovered that Matt Haig unfriended me on Facebook. 

That's more than a bit weird. His mutual friends are made up of four Manchester writers I've known for years. They've tutored me, drank with me, I've been to their readings and house-sat for them. But did I do a horribly creepy thing by asking if I could send him a present? Do autistic people never ever bloody know where the appropriate line is?

Don't get me wrong. I'm not so precious that an 'unfriending' would upset me. Only the idea that I might (or to be fair, might not) have been seen as a cyberspace Annie Wilkes who may have been sending something utterly inappropriate, when I thought I might be doing something to make someone smile. 

Or maybe he imagined worse. A six-inch thick manuscript with a begging note for him to promote it. 

Typical world 1. Autism 0.

Never mind. We'll win on penalties.


Yeah. Joking aside, I'm embarrassed. 

Fankid

I'm a big fan of the books of Matt Haig. Specifically of his novel The Radleys, a quirky family vampire tale lined with black comedy and laden with pathos. It speaks subtly of addiction and even more so of depression. 

There is a book within this book called The Abstainer's Handbook and on a whim, I asked the owner, Scott, of Etsy shop IgnisFatuusBooks, to create a likeness of this book. Matt had posted recently about writing being an ongoing tool to challenge his depression. So, I asked Matt via Facebook if I could send him this piece of fan art/notebook to him care of his agent or publisher. 

But he didn't reply. 

This one-of-kind notebook that I thought perhaps might be a nice gift is heading its way to my letterbox. Now it'll probably remain unopened and unused.

Being a fankid to writers, this is nothing new. I have two letters from Chuck Palahniuk that are waiting to be framed, and I have debated having various author autographs I've collected tattooed on me. Bret Easton Ellis. Jasper Fforde. Ransom Riggs. I would give a kidney to meet or even just have a postcard from Stephen King. Writers to me are the real rockstars. Odd, awkward, making worlds made of make-believe and leaving something tangible behind. 

I don't want to be rich or famous. I want to produce a novel that makes people cry, laugh, feel nauseous, comforted and disturbed. Because if I can do all that, it means I will finally understand people and, surely, understand other people's range of emotions and experiences. Creating 300 pages that resonates with people would mean I might finally be able to shatter the glass that the aspie lives behind. Perhaps I can stop passing/defaulting to saying outrageous things because I'm not sure how to join a conversation. Perhaps. 

Perhaps Matt Haig might even get back to me and not think it weird I had a piece of fan art made for him, but know it was just one outsider to another saying, It's dangerous to go alone. Take this.

New Story Out

The Morpheus Tales Taboo Special issue has landed! My story 'Apron Strings' is amongst the pages of what promises to be, "No limits, no holds barred." @morpheustales

I'm pretty pleased with this story. It shaped itself quite naturally around a quick snippet from a friend. She had just given birth to her son. The midwife asked if she wanted to keep the placenta. The midwife still had her own son's placenta in her freezer 22 years later...

From the publishers:

"The free preview of the magazine is available here:
https://issuu.com/morpheustales/docs/taboo_special_issue_preview

The ebook in various formats is available here:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/648109?ref=morpheustales

The ebook will also be available on amazon for the kindle soon.

The printed digest size edition is available here:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/stanley-riiks-and-ken-goldman-and-adrian-ludens-and-sheri-white/taboo-special-issue/paperback/product-22778122.html

The printed perfect-bound edition is available here:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/stanley-riiks-and-ken-goldman-and-adrian-ludens-and-sheri-white/taboo-special-issue-perfect-bound-edition/paperback/product-22778129.html

10% off print copies for a limited period!"

The Bus Driver's Cubbyhole of Misery

Sometimes it's a simple miscommunication that brings about a meltdown. Something as broad ranging as 'social disability' may, on certain days, not be triggered by two shouting people in the street, but by one ignorant person.

I can confidentially say I was doing the right thing. And a nice thing.

I can assert that this first month in a job that requires 3 hours of commuting and resisting the urge to bang on train windows where restless or jump down onto train tracks 'just to have a look' is incredibly difficult.

Today I got on the bus home, a First Bus. The 36, if you're interested. I got on with my C+ pass. It was on time and not crowded. This was good. Two stops on a young girl got on and said, '£1.50.'

The bus driver growled, 'There is no £1.50. You tell me where you're going.'

The girl replies, 'Right near X Street. I've just finished work and I get this route every day and they always charge me £1.50.'

Him: There's no button for £1.50 and I've been doing this job for 4 years.
Her: Can you check?
Him: Okay. Do you wanna put money on it?
Her: What?
Him: Do you wanna put money on it?
Her: Look, what is it?
Him: £1.60.
Her: Oh, right. I thought you were going to say loads more.
Him: It will be if you're going further.
Her: I'm not. I'm going just by X Street.
Him: Just get on already. But I'm warning you, you get off when I say.

The bus goes on. At a stop that is...somewhere, the driver stops and orders her off. She stands and goes to his little cubbyhole of misery

Her: But this isn't where I get off!
Him: You get off here because that's what you paid for.

They argue. I start feeling squirmy, hot-eyed, like I want to bite my hand. I have a ten pound note and a five pound note in my hand.

I get up and approach girl and driver. I hold out my bunched-up notes.

Me: Hi. How much more does she owe? I can - 
Her: [To me] It's okay, cheers, I have the money, it's just - 
Him: Just get off the bus. [To me] You, sit yourself down. [Points arm back down the bus] Now.

I recoil. His tone was direct, an order, threatening. Will he throw me off the bus in the rain?

I don't sit. I lean against the pole, clutching my money and hugging my bag. I feel scared. My brain is losing its filter rapidly and I run a conversation in my head. I will explain that I was doing a good thing, that he was rude and that he shouldn't have said that to me. He will understand because he is human.

At my stop I don't get off, but stand by his cubbyhole of misery.

Me: Look [shows him the two notes] I was trying to help by offering to pay any extra she needed.
Him: She had money. She already got an extra stop, that one.
Me: But you didn't need to order me away like that. That was rude.
Him: I told her to get off.
Me: No, you were rude and ordered me away, which is wrong. You shouldn't be rude. It's not nice.
Him: You were interfering.
Me: [Holds up bright blue AUTISM ALERT card] I have autism and I was trying to help. Why were you mean?
Him: You were interfering. We'll leave it there.
Me: But - 
Him: Get off the bus.

I have a high-impact job. I deal with chaotic, vulnerable and yes, occasionally hostile people. And despite my facial expressions, I do give a shit. Today before I got on my train to work, I checked in with a homeless man who looked like he was going over and made sure to warn him to stay away from town in the afternoon in case it kicked off post-match and to also find out what had happened to the others tenting out. Answer: they were burned out.

I deal with the stresses of adult life and obsessions and rituals daily with a consistent lack of Theory Of Mind - I assume everyone thinks and approaches all situations as I do. Brain scans of autistic people even show a difference in brain make-up. Yet in my personal life, I cannot 'pass' so well. At work, I act a role and it exhausts me. Personally, I may be emotionally mature as the average 14-year old. 

Does this explain why after getting off the bus this evening, I put my hood up and actually cried the short walk to my house. Why, when I walked in and The Fiancé asked what was wrong the first words out of my mouth were, 'I'm a stupid fucking autistic freak' and ran upstairs to hide. I am 31 years old.

Since my diagnosis I have never referred to myself in those terms.

This was not a serious incident. Not a major assault on my personality or physical self. No one threw excrement at me or kicked me or called me a retard. Yet the mismatch between my want to do a nice thing and then being insulted and then finding further insult when I disclosed my autism stung more than anything else has in many months.

The Fiancé put it in simpler terms.

'Maybe he was angry because he missed the match. Or perhaps he had to deal with lairy fans all day. Or, maybe, just maybe, he's just a total twatwaffle.' 




POSTSCRIPT: The blue Autism Alert cards have so far proven utterly useless.

The White Walkers (NOT a GoT Spoiler)

Signs that perhaps your aspie nature and long-running obsession with health and illness is becoming wildly unmanageable (read: ridiculous):

You become so fixated on the number of viral infections you've had, which GPs gently explain are a fall-out from glandular fever (how can someone so obsessed with illness have been unaware they had GF? Weird) that you become convinced you have HIV and that is the only way to explain the mystery aches and pains and tiredness and recurrent infections. You even go to the GUM for a complete screening despite complete monogamy and no needle-stick injuries.

The results are, unsurprisingly, completely negative.

Shortly after, I start falling asleep on the train to work, when you've just eaten, when you cry, have strange dreams that you confused with real life on a daily basis and struggle to sleep at night. I then believe, confidently, I have narcolepsy.

The fatigue dies down when I forget to daily Google "narcolepsy symptoms".

All week in the stifling heat and humidity, I seemed to sweat more than others, my hands shook constantly, I cried in public when trains were delayed, swore I heard announcements at the stations that no one else heard, sobbed into The Fiancé's chest about how long it could be before one of us eventually dies, and smacked a purple bouncy ball between my hands so I didn't hit inanimate objects. My support worker texted me about autism and Heat Intolerance and how you can feel like you're going...well, insane.

Someone relatively high up at work teases you when you ask for gloves to pick up any rubbish outside work and you go into overload and begin biting your hand in a toilet cubicle and covering your hands with alcohol rub. The ball bounces endlessly against the tiles and by 3pm you say, 'Fuck this. I'm taking an early finish tonight.'

Then you do come down with a cold and take your temperature every half hour, find your glands are swollen and that puffs from The Fiancé's asthma inhaler is the only thing that relieves the closed-throat feeling. I therefore believe that years have smoking have triggered COPD.

Or have been infected by hepatitis. 

Then. The night of The White Walkers.

The temperatures in the UK have shot up this past week, turning thrown away meat wrapped in bags and placed in the bin into a breeding ground for maggots. Like droplets of pus, they fell from the bin and when I shone a light on the yard, there was what can I only be described as a carpet of them heading for the house.

I used all the salt in the house, slug pellets, boiled kettles and checked through out the night that they had not squidged under the door. I spent hours crawling around the house picking up what turned out to be white scraps of tissue or dried rice grains. By 1am, I seriously considered setting fire to the bin as the ultimate solution.

The next day, The Fiancé and I mixed bleach and water and sluiced the yard and then poured the solution into the bin and taped up the bin with duct tape. Hot fumes would choke the bastards, Google said.

Afterwards, we ate a breakfast of bacon butties in front of Ink Master and enjoyed that strangely relaxing post-genocide euphoria that is perhaps shared only by serial killers.

All was well. Except for the rat that we discovered last week with the fur eaten from its skull, we weren't too worried. 

Today, heavy rains had turned the rat into a flattened white 2-D outline. I heard next door's kid scream about something and the mother shout, 'Don't go near it!' I hope she was shouting about wasps. When I checked our resident corpse, its tail had been raised and draped over a slab. Like something had grabbed it and then been interrupted...

I spent an inordinate amount of time by the back door, eavesdropping on their conversations and could only relax when I heard snippets that seemed to relate to booking a last minute holiday. Maybe they weren't about to bang on our door and blame us for rats and maggots? I emailed the council and begged them to remove the bin. 

I put down rat bait outside, chugged more Valium and The Fiancé stroked my head and admitted that it had been a particularly bad week and maybe I needed to see my support worker.

I nodded, flicked my fingers and told him I had an appointment in a fortnight. He frowned and, rare for him, advised me to gauge how I felt tomorrow before going in.

Then he grinned and said, 'How about you write a story about those white walkers?'

I'm marrying this guy for so many kickass reasons.

The Night We Did and Didn't Have

Last night we had tickets to go to Antwerp Mansion in Rusholme for a "Regression Session" pop-up nightclub.

We did study the event's Facebook page carefully and looked at the profile pictures of people who stated they were Going. All 447 of them. We decided that they were young, sexy club bunnies and everyone appeared 10 years younger than us with better make-up and less body fat.

We did analyse the situation, score our moods, do a Pros and Cons list of going, discuss travel arrangements, if we would or wouldn't like it, how much an Uber would cost at 3am and if our Prozac doses were correct...for a fucking HOUR AND A HALF.

We did reach a decision and changed the plan.

We did not go here:

We did not partake in this:

We did go here:

The local (and only) "rock" pub where we sat on benches that are encouraged to be graffitted on (someone had persistently scrawled COCKSUCKING THUNDERCUNT onto the wood) next to teenage Goth girls drinking water who whined about "hipster metalboys" (I don't know what these are. Please help me understand).

We did stand a metre away from one of the bands amongst a crowd of six who clapped self-consciously when Indie Band #57* finished a song. 

We did not change our minds and head to Rusholme. We did continue to here:

We did drink cider of many types. Brothers. Old Mout, Thatchers and local brews that The Fiancé likened to "like Hartley's making cider." We did win money on a fruit machine by bashing random buttons.

We did see a man in a Deadpool morph suit dancing camply beside women with walking sticks in front of a band who played hard rocked versions of David Bowie. We did not see ball pits, bouncy castles or glow sticks.

We did see three of my ex-clients sat on the pavements, trying to get money for food. I will not go into their details, but I knew they were hungry and did need that money for food. They chatted openly to me and The Fiancé about their housing situation. Quick summary: dangerous. 

We did not spend £150 on a Travelodge/Holiday Inn/Premier Inn room in Manchester just so that we could crash and not worry about bed for the night.

We did spend £20 in a Bolton takeaway on three pizzas and a chicken kebab (for one of the guys' dogs). We did walk for twenty minutes trying to find the ones who had swapped pitches. One guy we did have to track for awhile until we found him. He was able to go to where he goes to sleep and not have to make any more money that night. He would be able to feed his partner. He wouldn't get attacked tonight.

We did see Bolton's Street Angels (old men in High-Vis jackets) assisting drunken girls falling outside clubs. Girls with working phones and six friends to help them and probably at least the price of a 9 inch pizza each to get a taxi home. 

We did not see anyone talk to my clients. We did see people shout at them. We did not see Street Angels talk to them or stop beside them.

We did go back to the original pub and buy more cider. The Fiancé shambled out of the toilets after a long time, sat down and stated, 'I just used my trusty pound coin to carve FUCK JILLY** on the wall.' Then a passing man rubbed his head for good luck.

We did manage to sell one of the tickets for the thing we didn't do. We did not wish we'd been there instead.

We did go home, eat takeout and watch Family Guy.

We did not feel bad for being too afraid to go to a big fuck-off club night and opting instead for local pubs. We did not feel anything when we fell asleep. Except how good a bed feels when you've been out in the night air in the busy town centre. 

We did not take it for granted.


*Indie Band #57 was not their name, but I like it for a band name. I'll use it.
**Jilly is a false name for The Fiancé's old flame.

It Was Nothing More Than Once Upon A Time

A wise man (that would be Chuck Palahniuk, who knows a thing or two about visceral storytelling) said, 

"Your past is just a story. And once you realize this it has no power over you."

Chuck Palahniuk may remember me from such 'Stan'-style letters that ran, 'I'm a really really big fan of yours', 'I want to be a writer TOO' and 'How do you do what you do?' 

I have his delicately typed, 'Chill the fuck out, hunny' responses still saved in their envelopes. Maybe I'll frame them. 

He does makes an excellent point. So many times past memories, triggers, fears, anxieties feel like real and present danger. They make fingers go totally numb, chests cramp, bowls unleash, heads explode with pain, arms shake, voices stutter and language and sometimes actions unfold into some confusion of fighting something that is no longer happening. 

Though memories can leave great imprints, leave keloids on the heart, they are no more real than a Netflix box set or a really long novel. A detailed tangled story. Your story, but a story. And stories live only in the mind.

But those feelings. Oh, those feelings are fried gold. If a traumatic/weird/hysterically dark past can be separated from present-day living, then we have that thing some writers bitch that they cannot find. 

Plot. 

Plot is story. Plot is narrative. Plot is the tale of a person or people navigating life. Plot is someone's past formulating a future. Plot runs a book, a TV show, a film, a play, a poem.

I cannot claim that I do not get sudden shooting pains through my jawbones or numb fingertips when I get caught in the past. I can't claim I don't think something terrible is about to happen. And then I see I am stood still at a bus stop, waiting to go to work. There is a lone teenager with exploding acne sloped against the lamppost, half-awake for college. A man wearing ADDICTED sweatpants idles past me and lets their elderly dog shit on the grass verge. Life is just life as it should be.

Then I know I can gather up those scraps of past that have screeched through my head like serial killers on Spice and twist them up into fiction like horrible origami.

I think this is my way of saying today was a difficult 'aspie' day. But I went to work, hid my hand-flapping, only had mild outbursts and right now I'm in front of the laptop, favouring fiction over planning my wedding. I have fourteen months until I'm wed. I've been waiting my whole life to turn hours of cramped typing into more than something that just makes me want to sleep through my day job.

Ctrl + N. 

Now. Begin tying.

Squishy Pages

A smushing of short stories is now a complete collection. Break out the glitter and Jaffa Cakes.

Yeah, an unpublished collection, but it's mine, it's gross and it's dark. And funny in a way that a really noxious fart makes you laugh and retch at the same time. I've spent a long time hunched over this laptop or scribbling in B&M notebooks and then carving it up with red ink until it's taken a nice twisted shape, like a cherry blossom tree subjected to bindweed. 

Side note: 

I've long-since discovered that chain coffee shops are not the place for writing and plotting. For a start, who has a spare £4 for a bitter creamy frappemoccaccinolatte when fun writing takes hours and a bitter creamy frappemoccaccinolatte takes about fifteen minutes to drink? 

And, also, these shops are choked with office workers, hipster students and yummy mummies so it's not the best place to slam your fist down on the table and shout:

'Of course! Eric and Lauren didn't know they were brother and sister until after their first child was born!'




I mean, you could. But who has the time to explain?

And if you did, most people don't like discussing incest plot twists over blueberry muffins.

Glad I'm not most people.




So, a preview of story gunge to come:

• A small South Bank pawn shop that focuses their business on human organs

• A woman getting over a particularly sickening break-up bumps into one of her students at the GUM Clinic

• A palliative care nurse is spending the last hour of her shift concentrating more on her patient's earrings than her patient

• A man frozen in a coma from catching snowflakes on his tongue

• A psychiatric registrar doing a rotation with a maverick consultant in behavioural therapy

• A man addicted to A&E

• A couple who find that their newborn gives them a new taste for life

• An artistic mother intent on fashioning a famous life for her perfect daughter

• A teenage boy at his girlfriend's wake who is more distracted by his erection than by mourning relatives

And more!

Now, time to edit, edit, edit. And drag a worthy synopsis together. And find an agent or publisher. And maybe have a blueberry muffin, because now I'm sort of hungry. 

Barista! Fetch cake! And a maroon gel pen!

People Are Strange

Am pleased to report that a short story rattled off a couple of weeks ago ('Apron Strings') was accepted for its target publication, Morpheus Tales.

They'll be publishing a special Taboo Issue in July/August so more links and such will follow, but I'm pretty pleased about this one, mostly because the story flowed easily to the page and I seemed to hit the mark of what the editors were looking for.

A re-read does spy sentences that I wouldn't mind tightening, but I'm still pleased.

It's horror, it's sort of disgusting (depending on your threshold) and I personally find it funny. But, then, I am a bit strange...

Hungry for a story, anyone?

The Calorie Ballet

If you start measuring what is essentially rainbow sugar into 'thoughtful portions' you've missed the whole damn point of this candy.

Nerdy, Dirty, Inked and Curvy

As part of my post-diagnostic care following my autism diagnosis, I have been working very hard to see the differences and not the disabilities. So, for example, instead of being continually frustrated that I cannot see 'the big picture' of a situation, I am now relishing that I can spot small details and how they connect that others may not. 

'Different not less.' Blah blah blah. 

For example, I asked a client if they would like a Hep C test in case their tattoos had been kitchen scratch jobs. The person looked suspicious. 'How do you know I have tattoos?' I glanced at him again. 'I can see them under your shirt,' I said. 

This person was wearing a long-sleeve shirt and I could see just a flash of black line work before their hand started, but it told me enough that they probably have at least one large tattoo, which are expensive and not many people I come across in any walk of life have the money for sleeve tattoos. So. Has it been done by a mate in a dirty kitchen with a machine bought from Amazon and so would they therefore like to be tested for BBV?

I digress. As part of embracing the differences, I have been pushing myself to go beyond my circumvented world (on the proviso I can return as suddenly as I choose). 

I wrote a horror/taboo story for an open submission call that had The Fiancé squirming when he asked to read it and looked at me with disgust. Showing someone my work is a big step because even fifteen minutes away from the laptop and I began to see syntax I could correct, plot that could be better juggled and imagery that could have more bite. Editing never stops. But I did submit it.

I began to get the blank spaces filled in on my arms with small tattoos that are not deep/meaningful/dark/worthy of commentary. They're cute, colourful and silly. And the artist was also crazy about The Offspring, too.

I won a Gift of Confidence boudoir (read: underwear) photography shoot with a local studio. I have never ever neverevernever been the kind of person to strip down to Batman knickers, raise my arms and cock a hip. But after finding solace with a make-up girl who geeked out with me about Xbox One (note: must finish Limbo) and a photographer who had orange hair, I was doing just that.

I'm getting older and I have to start taking more chances before I am unable to. 

Of course, there is inevitable fallout from being bolder. Submitting work risks rejection, getting 'cute' tattoos risks looking stupid and having photos that show my body risks feeling odd when I go to the Viewing Session.

 

But all people experience these risks of chances. 

There was one more significant instance of embracing the difference rather than the disability that may have triggered my weekend of doing Social Things. I was on a break with a co-worker, the same age as my mother, and in a roundabout way I explained I had Asperger's Syndrome. Directly, she asked exactly what that was (staff have recently had autism training). I explained it was a high-functioning form of autism, more hidden, not always as obvious. She asked what the symptoms were. Surprisingly, I talked openly about my sensory issues, my problem with socialising and making new friends, eye contact and how even when happy I may appear to act around 14. I explained meltdowns and what stimming is. She said it sounded very debilitating. I stated that yes, sometimes things get worse and I explained my rituals with leaving the house and multiple checkings, especially when stressed. What my own stimming and meltdowns looked like.

She clapped me on the shoulder when we walked back into work and said I handled it all very well. I made sure I didn't wriggle where she'd touched me and smiled.

So, I have that member of staff to thank for my busy albeit risk-fraught weekend. And it's a fucking shame because it's taken me 8 whole months before I could properly talk to my co-workers and back and forth freely and have them laugh even if I misinterpreted things. It's a fucking shame because I'm moving to a new job in a couple of weeks and no team will be this noisy, foul-mouthed and tender-hearted. They've done more for me than they know. Not just in learning very, very fast about managing substance misuse clients. But with integrating with a completely different career path and types of people. People who use the phrase 'You utter thundercunt' as freely as 'Is it raining outside?'

To my team: 

Player 2 Has Entered The Game

No. No, no, no. How is this real?

But, firstly congratulations to Andrew Michael Hurley, author of The Loney, his début novel. I picked it up this week in Waterstones, seeing it had won the Costa Book Prize for Best Novel and had even been endorsed by Stephen King. 

Stephen KING. My mind buckles to see it.

And I am enjoying this new-to-me horror writer. Creepy in an old-fashioned, curiously British sense, and writhing in unspoken terrors. 

However.

I re-opened it today and saw Hurley's bio. A little further Googling has yielded more facts. Andrew Michael Hurley is living my dream. Quite literally. His bio is very similar to mine and the same genre as I would like to be and the talented bastard got there first.

"Andrew Michael Hurley has lived in Manchester and London..."
(I lived in Manchester for twelve years. Before then, I lived on the outskirts of North London.)

"...and is now based in Lancashire..."
(I now live in Lancashire.)

"...he has an MA in Creative Writing from Manchester Metropolitan University..."
(me too.)

"...he has been published in the Manchester Writing School's own journal of creative work, Muse..."
(me too.)

"...he was born in 1975."
(YES!!!! He's exactly a decade older!!)

Please excuse my moderate hysteria. For an odd moment in Waterstones I thought I'd been the victim of identify theft. Luckily, I'm just the hostage of procrastination.

The gauntlet has been thrown down. Hurley, I'm coming for you. Challenge accepted!

Dah-Dah-Da-Daaahh

More than 1 in 100 people in the UK have autism. 15% only are in full-time employment. 33% are married or co-habiting.

So, I'm now in three minorities. The Fiancé planned the moment in his meticulous fashion. In order to get my ring size right, he borrowed a ring sizer from his Mum and planned to wait until I fell asleep and then slip it on to my hand. These things look like white plastic cable ties. If I'd woken up, I'd have presumed he was having a Dexter fantasy.

In the end, due to my restless sleep he aborted the idea and instead tried to squeeze my existing fingers onto his baby finger and then guess the number. It worked.

He phoned my Mum to ask for her blessing two weeks before. A beautiful touch that may not have occurred to most people. He blinked at me and asked how could it not occur to someone to ask for a parent's blessing.

We went to the bar where we first met two years ago. He was a sweaty, distracted mess. Our favourite song came on over the sound system. I said how weird it was. No bar plays that band. That song was never even released from the album. The Then-Boyfriend began to burble, squeak and eventually got down on one knee and presented a beautiful silver gold ring. I loved that he never even considered golden gold. It looks awful on me.

I cried, he cried. I said yes and we kissed and hugged like horny teenagers. The bar staff, who were in on the planning, cheered and screamed, 'They're getting married!' Many people offered us drinks. The waitresses took our photos. The bar owner fell in the bar some hours later and screamed her delight at her bar's first proposal and offered us Prosecco at cost for the wedding. I hope she was sober enough to remember that the next morning.

Being stupidly responsible, we cut the night short and got the bus home. We should have stayed out until 2am, dancing and talking and grabbing ass. But we got the bus, which took three times as long because it had to stop when a drunk guy bitchslapped a girl across the face. My ring would have left a lovely mark across his cheek.

Now we have to pick a venue, date, dress, rings, guests, music, food, whose name do we use or do we combine? Oh, and a budget...this shouldn't be too overwhelming at all. And if it is, it'll be for the right reasons.

I have only made one decision so far. I'm wearing Wedding Converse. End of. 

#Amwriting

Two stories knocked out for recent submissions. Two others remain under consideration. Two others published recently. It would be nice if publishers still took on collections of short stories because I've clocked up over 90,000 words of the bad boys, but until that era comes again I'll print and staple them for my friends, my poor poor friends who were expecting...nicer stories. 

I'm rediscovering a real joy (does that sound right?) for horror-speculative fiction. Weirdness, grossness, what-the-fuck-ness. It's what I'm all about right now.

One story clocked in at just under 10,000 words (perhaps I got lost with the plot) and another just under 2,000 (perhaps I never found the plot). 

We'll see what the editors think. I quite liked them, but would love any feedback and a chance for editing with fresh eyes. We shall see.

Now. Recently I watched Sinister. Since the age of 15, I've struggled to watch horror films. I can read it, write it, discuss it and not be disgusted when a client shows me a video on their iPhone of their leg being operated on. But viewing a horror film, particularly one with a supernatural element, freaks me the fuck out. Give me straight up psychological gore any day.

But I got through Sinister, albeit looking through an inch gap of the blanket draped around my head. I earned my bravery hugs. I thought that at a 15 rating it couldn't scare me that much. I stand (and shiver) corrected.

I bought What Really Frightens You? on a whim at Asda. The blurb sounded good (horror writer throws out a call for readers' fears and then all hell lets loose) and the cover seemed to imply excellent effects.

I switched it off within five minutes. I genuinely thought the beginning was a spoof, like a film within a film. The next scene of exposition was a huge infodump, somewhat akin to a porn film trying to ram (pun intended) a plot line into the next gratuitous hour or so. Even the acting and camera work screamed of an open casting call and being shot in a trailer in a motel-ridden part of Hollywood.

So what really frightens this reader? That I paid five fucking quid for that DVD and now I can't return it because I took the plastic off.