who only by moving can balance

Further to my previous, I now own:

• a TWSBI Diamond 580ALR in Prussian Blue, with a 1.1 mm stub nib
  
• 80ml of Diamine Eau de Nil
  
• 80ml of Diamine Blue/Black
  
• 60ml of TroubleMaker Starry Night Blue (shown off to gorgeous effect in this r/fountainpens post)
  
• ... and a replacement Pilot Penmanship FP60

I went for the stub nib on the grounds that A already owned a Diamond 580-compatible EF nib, so I had might as well get something as different as possible, on the grounds that I could always swap it out. (A had not realised that the nib units swap out on the Diamonds -- he got his second-hand at a bargain price -- and is Very Pleased at the concept of ceding the EF to me entirely if I stick a B in my next fountain-pen-fandom order, which is... definitely going to happen, sigh).

I have finally, today, got (more-or-less) to grips with the stub nib, and it is now writing reliably. Sorting out handwritings I also like is a work in progress, but I am starting to get some amount of sense of how to do things, e.g. this ink wishlist as a blatant excuse to continue with writing practice:



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So, er, let's see, what is the state of this hobby? "Cheaper than perfume per millilitre" is perhaps damning with faint praise; I am trying to actually think seriously, in the grip of Special Interest NRE, about how much I'm likely to want to use water-based and water-soluble inks (As A Geologist I have historically preferred waterproof inks, but for reasons those aren't generally fountain-pen friendly, because stuff that won't dissolve in water likes clogging up the workings), but for right now I am an extremely happy autistic who is spending hours every day reading fountain pen blogs. I am taking it upon myself to Explain Fountain Pens to A, frequently and with vigour, because his Special Interest was long enough ago now that the scene has in fact moved on some.

And, you know, practical considerations aside, I am having immense fun. There are! so many! shiny blues!

Content note: discusses food & eating.

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It has been belatedly dawning on me, over the last few months, that this thing I have always found at least faintly distressing -- the bit where I'm a classically-trained musician who, by and large, just cannot with listening to classical music unless (1) it's a technical exercise or (2) I've listened through along with the score a bunch -- is... it's auditory processing, isn't it.

I can't spot the jokes and keep the train of thought and remember what's happening and how it all relates unless I have it written down in front of me or am otherwise intimately familiar with it or am deliberately consciously breaking it down into its constituent parts... because of auditory processing issues.

Which is also, right, almost certainly why I like listening to Modern Music that consists of a single (approximately) vocal line, that's essentially an excuse to set poetry to music (hi, Leonard Cohen), because it signposts things clearly for me...

... and is also why I mostly don't like listening to choral works, because "human vocal sounds" parse to me as "verbal information that I'm failing to distinguish", which is a deeply stressful experience...

... and might also be why I've always Just Not Liked the particular characteristic quality shared by recorders and pipe organs.

I'm turning thirty in just over four months, and I had individual music lessons from the age of about five to the age of about 18 (and then kept playing in orchestras), and I am somewhat peevish that neither this nor the proprioceptive issues ever got identified. But it is still nice to have an explanation, or something like one.

Lo these many moons ago, I think in a gift shop at the Tate Modern, I came across the playableART ball. I stroked it and I cooed over it and I couldn't possibly justify it at the time, and I've had a wistful link to it sat on my private "maybe one day" wishlist ever since, which time adds up to some years, at this point.

A couplefew weeks ago, several bits of financial stress abruptly resolved themselves in a positive fashion. I ordered one on the 9th; it arrived shortly thereafter; I have been stimming with it ever since; it has been really helpful in terms of giving me something to do with my hands while I try to work out what the next step in writing [whatever] is; I love it. It is so good.

(So good.)

Not-really-a-linkspam: How Autistics and Neurotypicals Experience Emotions Differently. I have a whole bunch of quibbles & criticisms, but I'm interested in the framework, the concept of experiencing "justice" and "mercy" and "work" as emotions -- for example (emphasis as in the original):

I have a close friend [...] She will show me something she has been working on, and my immediate response will be to correct the language which might not be as accurate or as thoughtful as it could be. I do this before telling her how proud I am for the Work she’s doing, before I tell her it’s well-written, and before I affirm for her that she is a good person doing a good thing. She does the same for me.

The reason is because if someone complimented me on Work I was doing, then I would feel they were implying that I was Laboring in the interest of self-promotion or validation-seeking. These aren’t spoken values, but something we feel innately. This is how I Labor with other autistics. We correct each other. We offer what expertise and insight we can to sharpen the other’s Work, to add volume and clarity to the other’s Love song.

I don't think the things the author talks about as Weird Neurotypical Habits -- gifts, cards, talking about the weather, asking "how are you?" -- are in any sense universally solely Weird Neurotypical Habits even though they don't work for her. "We don’t really congratulate each other, because that would be an invalidation of the Purpose." -- um, excuse me, no. (There's probably something here about autism and trauma, as previously discussed: it's taken me a while to learn that it's useful for me to note and recognise and praise effort, as well as outcomes and product, but it taking me a while to notice that, it not coming naturally to me, doesn't mean it's pointless or invalidating.)

But it still feels like there is Something In There, even if I've not managed to articulate it yet, so apparently that's what I'll be chewing over this afternoon.

I recently linked to an article pointing out that the "symptoms" used as diagnostic criteria for autism are... actually symptoms of trauma, in many cases.

I don't actually have much to say, now, but I ended up reading the NAS's page on pathological demand avoidance, which notes that one of the reasons it's useful to have a specific dx of demand-avoidant profile because... it avoids incorrect assumptions and diagnoses, such as Personality Disorder.

("Although a person might have these as well," it concedes.)

Which, given that at least Borderline Personality Disorder can in a very great many cases be usefully modelled as an entirely predictable result of prolonged and cumulative trauma... seems to me to be missing the point, rather, actually. In that: allistic parents (& allistic society) aren't actually, by and large, very good at raising autistic children without traumatising them (with the best of intentions! and a great deal of love!); the failure to provide appropriate engagement and reciprocity throughout childhood is unequivocally known to be profoundly (and cumulatively!) traumatising; and, per the above, (i) the diagnostic criteria for autism rely to an alarming extent on trauma, and (ii) at least one "personality disorder" clearly results from prolonged trauma.

I'm just... really not convinced that "let's pretend autistic-flavoured long-term trauma is meaningfully and clearly distinct from this other (differently stigmatised) way we traumatise people" is a useful approach.

Best realisation in the past 48 hours: I don't have to turn on the overhead lights in lab. There is plenty enough to work by just with the (flow/fume) hood lights on! I don't need the brilliant glaring overhead nonsense! I can be bathed in gentle quiet glow without SHOUTY CEILING LAMP. It is great. (Sensorily shouting, that is -- they don't make an obtrusive audio noise, they're just... very, in a white lab with white reflective surfaces and white floors and Everything is Clear or White.)

Relatedly, I have been pondering the validity of explaining sensory processing disorders/low thresholds for overstimulation along the lines of: okay, so, you know how hangovers make light and noise hurt? Even if they're not particularly bright or loud? NOW IMAGINE THAT DIM LIGHTS AND QUIET NOISES GAVE YOU HANGOVERS. (Which is aimed at a very particular target audience, obviously, and I Know Not Whereof I Speak having never been hungover, but.)

In other news, we have... maybe probably sort of almost bought the flat? Perhaps? The money is with our solicitors? I... don't even know.

I really struggle with short fiction, particularly in anthologies. I'm averse to getting started and I have to make myself pick them back up, even if I know I like the authors, even though I know I frequently really like several pieces in any given anthology.

It's about task-switching, isn't it. Every new short story is a new task, with new information and names and mechanics to keep track of, and anthologies condense those down, and I never have time to settle in and stop doing the work of understanding all of the surface (in order to understand the innards). And that's why even individual shorts by authors I know I adore are difficult (if they're out-universe to novels).

It's nice to know why, at least.

Sad and insomniac? Focus difficult? Feeling useless? Give it a couple of kilos of loose change in a range of currencies and it'll be happy for hours.

(Reasons to keep facesfriend around: I erupted into a small victory hiss at him as he was saying goodnight on IM, because having earlier found obsolete English shillings I had finally finally a little over an hour later found obsolete Austrian Schilling to go with them, and he appeared to find this hilarious and adorable because he understood exactly why I found it so satisfying.)

I'm reading this self-help guide about panic attacks by the Clinical Centre for Interventions (.au) and it's just so... alien to so much of my experience?

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