I was sitting on my bed in an irritable/useless mood this evening, not wanting to be aware that the rest of the human race exists, when the phone rang. My first thought was that I was sure that I'd told people not to call me today, but I picked it up reluctantly and listened to the screening machine to find out who it was.
A few minutes later:
Kyle: "Ah, now we're approaching Carson. I keep myself sane driving by remembering facts about every place I go. Did you know that Carson has the largest number of Samoans? I can quote percentages for you if you want. There's even a church for them."
Me: "Gee, you think you might be on the spectrum? You know, driving around, insane number of facts stored in your head..."
*snicker*
I didn't get a chance to write about my Aspie Non-Shopping Trip with him yesterday because I was so tired out... We weren't sure where to go, because he didn't have his laptop with him, so I suggested that we try to find a blender to replace the one he broke. First, we tried going to Wal-Mart, but both became disoriented, a bit confused, and irritable within minutes, because the place was (not surprisingly) a sensory disaster area from hell. Next up was Target.
We had FUN in Target. I had no idea that shopping outside the electronic/book area could be so entertaining. We were wandering the housewares area, when I saw one of those optical-fiber color-changing light displays I want, and pointed it out to him. (He gave me a really neat color-changing pen that I now stare at for extremely long periods of time when I am stressed out.) This seemed to signal to him that it is okay to be autistic (for lack of a better word) around me. About two aisles later, he found bowls, lampshades, and such made up of strings of colored beads... I didn't understand why he was so excited, until he said "feel, go like this!" and started rubbing his hand back and forth on the beads.
I was taught as a little kid to never touch anything in a store unless I'm going to buy it, so that hadn't even occurred to me. I immediately picked up the bowl next to his and started stimming on it identically... It was a very relaxing, pleasing thing to do! So we stood there in the housewares area and tested everything beaded for stimming value for about ten minutes.
After that, we wandered over to the area they put scented candles and such in. Again, I forgot that adults can touch things, so I stood watching at first until he said "smell!" and offered me a candle. I echoed him...next thing I knew, we were wandering through every single scented item in the area, sniffing it and declaring rather tactlessly what we thought about it.
I'm tired out now, so I shall end with a couple of amusing (to me) quotes that reflect the odd challenging structure of our usual banter. As if we weren't sharing things the way NTs do, so much as trying to prove sides of an argument for an essay, I think...
Kyle: "I like scents that smell like I'm baking."
Me: "I like scents that smell like I'm baking, but only something edible that I would actually cook. *sniffs a spice candle* Not like this."
Me: "I don't like people that are all hyper-friendly and talk to anybody."
Kyle: "I'm really friendly, I'll talk to people!"
Me: "You don't talk to people, you give monologues. That's why I like you, I don't have to say much."
I think that Frank Klein put it best when he said that we don't have dialogues so much as parallel monologues. If you look at the structure of my conversations with Kyle in particular, there is a strong tendency to do exactly that: he offers a fact, I offer a modified fact, back and forth. It can be exhausting, but it's also the most comfortable form of conversation I've encountered. (Note that normally Kyle does most of the talking; I only quote when we're actually both speaking actively, so it looks balanced or in my favor. :)
Posted by moggy at August 10, 2003 10:03 PM | TrackBack
