I love the internets

So...I, and the Erudite mother and sister, were given a 60 day notice a couple of months ago, and are now in the process of moving.  I'm just not, NOT going to go into all of the details, because they both exhaust me and bore everyone else!

But I will say that at the end of a long day that included looking at 4 potential houses to rent, I decided to kick back and do some research on a topic for a friend.  Which led to this, which led to that, and next thing I knew I was happily perusing the internets (our local library has access to digital Sanborn maps!  Ooooooh!).  Yes, I do this sometimes, almost as a hobby.  It's the librarian in me.  I looooove information.

So, to get back on topic, one of the things I ran into was this TED talk by Temple Grandin.  I then looked further and found this posting by her on the same subject.  And if you don't know who Temple Grandin is, she is worth learning about!  Anyhow, I was interested in her discussion of the three basic types of autistic minds--the visual ones, the music and math (in the TED talk she calls this pattern, which I think makes more sense) ones, and the verbal ones.

I immediately pondered, which mind do I have?  I am NOT a visual thinker.  I can't draw a stick figure well.  That is clearly not me.    I think in words, often seeing them as a page of a book.  Not pictures.  I love art, and have a great appreciation for it, but I have not talent for it at all.

The answer was obvious--verbal!  I have a love affair with books, am good at memorizing or at least getting close, and have been known to pin down book, approximate position in book, and scene, with full details, from one line of a book.  I am a speed reader, and it comes to me like breathing.  Words are my thing.  I also am an excellent public speaker, and generally speaking I am very clear communicator.

Considering the pattern thinker, though, I would say I have bits of patterns in me. Not because I am superb at math and engineering and music, far from it in fact.  But because I am obsessed with things like lists.  I also am obsessed with the idea of revolutions and balance and starting and ending, of going through all things before starting to use them again, of order.

To explain in practical terms (and yes, you ARE free to mock me) I, and my family, like to use pint glasses for pretty much everything we drink.  But I believe all the pints should be used before you reuse one.  I always grab from the right, and put back on the left.  If I have a blank space on the right I will fill it from the next row over and do this all the way down until I have space on the left to put away the newly cleaned glass.  I KNOW this is strange.  And when you live with other people, there are some things you just have to let go.  I wince when I see my mom or sister has very logically put away the glasses into the empty slots, remind myself that this is my strange Aspie thing and no one else is obliged to cater to my crazier oddities...then I go and fix it.  :)

I do this same basic thing with food.  The first in, first out thing in restaurants?  I believe it should be done at home to.  With food.  And kitchen towels.  And glasses.  And anything else.

And no, I don't expect everyone I live with do this--I told my sister about the pint glasses, and she didn't know that was my thing at all as I just hadn't mentioned it.  I already drive them crazy because I just don't get why the food in the frig and cabinets isn't put away in basically the same space every time so it both looks neat and you can find what you need and immediately tell if we have it, and I have begged and pleaded until the Erudite Sister and I worked out a workable plan and compromise that would manage to keep both of us sane.

But my strange pattern, first in first out to create a perfect and balanced cycle? Nope.  I do that alone.  :)

So, I am verbal with hints of pattern as it relates to lists and cycles.

And I love the internets.

That is all.

God bless,
EA