Asperger's Syndrome: An Introduction Course

Dania Jekel, the executive director of the Asperger Association of New England (AANE), will be teaching an introductory course about Asperger's Syndrome at the Mansfield Public Library on January 19, 2006.

The Most Important New Year's Resolution

Hopefully, I will get my book deal and see my memior, Uncommon Bostonian, appear on bookshelves in 2006.  I'm ready to do a book tour.

More Telephone Trouble

I've been having trouble with my telephone line in the last couple of days.  It's been difficult for me to surf the Internet for articles about Asperger's Syndrome, Non-Vebal Learning Disorder and Sleep Apnea.

I've called the phone company again, and they say it'll take a week for someone to check the telephone box inside my building.  This problem keeps happening often since September, and it takes longer for them to resolve it. 

Maybe I should switch to another phone company.

Two Monkee Birthdays on the Same Day!

Happy Birthday to 2 of The Monkees: Davy Jones (1945) and Mike Nesmith (1942)!

Also, Happy Birthday to those who share a birthday with Davy and Mike:

Jack Lord (1920)
Skeeter Davis (1931)
Russ Tamblyn (1934)
Del Shannon (1934)
Patti Smith (1946)
Jeff Lynne (1947)

A News Story From The Land Down Under!

The ABC Central Victoria has a story called "Being An Aspie" that talks about Tristan Jones who has Asperger's Syndrome.  He is the webmaster of the Bendingo Young Adult Aspergers Group, a group for young people with Asperger's Syndrome.

Live From Upstate New York!

The story of Paige Pierce, who is advocating Timothy's Law (a law to have health insurance cover mental health bills) in the TimesUnion.com called "A Child in Need Inspires a Life of Advocacy."  She has a 14 year-old-son called Emmet who has Asperger's Syndrome.

Congrats to Jamie Maxfield!

My fellow AANE member, Jamie Maxfield, an animator, is featured in an article by the Lexington Minuteman.  Way to go, Jamie!  You're famous!

I'm Back!

It's the 26th of December, and I'm back at my blog.  I had a good time down in DC visiting family.  I received tons of gifts for Christmas and my birthday which was on December 17.

Most Enjoyable Birthday Gift: The Beatles, The Biography by Bob Spitz from my brother James

Most Enjoyable Christmas Gift: My new pink robe from my parents.

My flight home was good too.  We came in ahead of schedule.  Thanks, Air Tran!

Storm and Cap, my two cats, were very pleased to see me.  I missed them both the whole time I was away.

Merry Christmas!

I'm heading off to Logan today and will be flying down to DC for Christmas.  I've spend the rest of my birthday weekend shopping and partying.  By Monday, I was very exhausted and stayed in bed the whole morning.

Since my parents don't have internet access at their house, I will express my holiday greeting today.

Merry Christmas!

I'll be back on the 26th with new posts.  Meanwhile, enjoy this blog and check out the links I have under Favorite Sites.

Enjoy!

Another Reason Why I Want To Write A Memoir

For many years, actually most of my life, people thought I was either crazy, stupid or just bad because I would do things that got them mad.  They would believe that I was doing it on purpose to get their attention, but that was never the case.  It was because of my disorders that I was coming across in a negative way to others. 

The part of my brain that would instinctively know how to behave and communicate properly with others has been developmentally delayed.  It may take most of my life to learn how to act and communicate appropriately to others.

The really bizarre part before I found out that I have Asperger's Syndrome was that others, including family, didn't suspect I had a neurological disorder.  That concept was just too impossible for them to accept, even after I told them that I didn't have the capablility to do certain things like being able to read faces and body language.

I just want to tell the world the truth that Asperger's Syndrome does exist in me.

Happy Birthday To Me!

Today's my 41st birthday!  I'm still not a best-selling author yet, but I'm working on it everyday.   I feel great this year, which is much better than last year because of that car accident I had just before my 40th birthday.

I have a lot of ideas that I want to write about, in addition to writing a memoir called Uncommon Bostonian.  I am still thinking up ideas to improve my two websites: Uncommon Bostonian and The Uncommentary.  Soon, I will be putting those ideas into my computer.

A Christmas Fairy Tale About 4 Autistic Boys

The Herald UK has an editorial called The Four Autistic Boys Who Made A True Christmas Fairy Tale by Ian Bell.  It's about the TV movie called Maginficient 7 regarding Jacqui Jackson, her three daughters and her four autistic boys.

More about Jacqui Jackson, the Super Mom!

GMTV has an article about Jacqui Jackson, the mother of seven children, including four boys that are autistic.  There's information about her book as well and how to purchase it.

NAS - The Best PR Agent for The Autistic

The National Autism Society in the United Kingdom has just started a campaign in Scotland to raise awareness of Autism and Asperger's Syndrome to police and lawyers.  It's in the article called "Just a New Way To Help The Autistic."

R.I.P. Richard Pryor

Last night, I got home from Christmas shopping and turned on the TV set to watch the news.  I learned that Richard Pryor had died of a heart attack.  He had been suffering from MS for many years.  I cried.

I grew up watching him.  I loved Silver Streak and Stir Crazy, the two movies he did with Gene Wilder.  There was a third one they did, but that wasn't as good as the other two.

He inspired Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock to become comedians as well as many others.

He'll be missed.

Is Too Much Sleep Bad?

Lack of sleep is bad for your health.  It seems now that having too much sleep is bad too, according to an article called The Big Sleep from the State newspaper in South Carolina.

It makes me wonder what's safe to do these days.

New Treatment for Sleep Apnea

It's called the Pillar Procedure.  It requires surgery to the roof of the mouth.  The article says there has been some success with this.

John Lennon's Death, 25 Years Later

It's still one of the worst moments of my life when my father told me that John Lennon had been shot and murdered in New York City.  I found out shortly after 11:30 pm on the night of December 8, 1980.  I was still miserable about losing my brother, Alfred, from a car crash he was in back of June of that same year.

It felt like a nightmare for me that John Lennon, like Alfred, was dead too.  It was just before my 16th birthday.  Thinking about that night still upsets me even today.

I still miss you, John, as much as I miss Alfred.

Asperger's Syndrome Turned to a Strong Point

The Kansas City Star has an article about Spencer Hunley, a 19-year-old who is Turning A Disorder To A Strong Point.  He has Asperger's Syndrome, just like me.

Another postitive story about Asperger's Syndrome.  Thanks, Spencer!

Another Autism Expert in The News - Alyson Beytien

The Journal Gazette and Times Courier in Illnois has an article about autism expert Alyson Beytien.  It tells about her personal story about being a mother to three sons who have varying degrees of autism.

She also writes a column in The Autism Spectrum Quarterly and has a radio web program.

It's great that we have more advocates to help raise awareness.  Thanks, Alyson!

The Night Before

Shortly after I set up my very first website called Uncommon Bostonian, I pasted a little essay on its home page called The Night Before (you have to scroll down the page a bit to find it).  It's about my mentioning John's and Yoko's names at the dinner table right in front of my parents on the night before John's murder.  Their reaction was very unpleasant.  They weren't aware at that time that I have Asperger's Syndrome and loved to talk about my own restricted interests.

The other kids at school didn't like the fact that I was constantly talking about a band that broke up.  This went on during the entire 1970s.  It just was not socially acceptable to talk about a band that broke up, according to one of the kids I went to school with.  I didn't mean to get anyone angry, but they wanted to hear me talk.  So I did talk and that was the only thing on my mind.

Childhood was hard.  That's not an understatement.

Sad Anniversary -- the Death of Roy Orbison!

This December 6 marks the 17th anniversary of the death of rock singer/guitarist Roy Orbison.  He had a heart attack when it was a very good time in his life.  He, along with Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, George Harrison and Jeff Lynn, had just release the Traveling Wilburys first album a mere six weeks before.  Roy had was just finishing his new album, Mystery Girl, as well when the tragedy happened.

Very sad.  I still remember when I woke up the next morning and found out on the radio.  I was listening to Joe and Andy in the morning at the old WROR (98.5 FM) when I heard Joe sadly announced that Roy had died of a heart attack.  I cried heavily that morning.

We still miss you, Roy.

Btw, Roy Orbison was singing "Pretty Paper" on the radio when my car crashed into a fence a year ago this night.  The car radio was tuned to WODS, Oldies 103, which was right down the street from where I crashed.  Very eerie!

A Lack of Mirror Neurons

Scientific American has an article called "A Lack of Mirror Neurons May Help Explain Autism."

This might be the evidence of what is causing autistic people to have difficulty socializing and understanding facial expressions and body language.  I hope so!

One Year Later...

It's been a year since my terrible car accident.  I was driving my Mustang on Market Street towards Shaw's at The Brighton Mills Plaza which is on Western Avenue.  Unfortunately, I never made it to that destination.

A light snowstorm was coming down around 7 pm that night.   When I got to the bridge that went over the Mass Pike, that's when it happened.  The bridge had ice on it.  I was already going slow, but I got hit from behind and skidded one way.  While I was trying to get control of the car, I was hit again from behind.  The car whipped around quickly making me lose my bearings for a few seconds.  Next thing I knew was that the car was going off the road and onto the sidewalk.  I ran into a fence and stopped.

Lucky for me that fence was there.  Otherwise, my car and I would have struck that three and tumbled into the Mass Pike.  That would have been the end of us both.

I was able to walk away from the crash.  It was later that evening when I started feeling the pain of my injured spine and knee.  I was more concerned getting my car towed back to my condo and seeing my two cats again.

A year later, I am better.  Not completely recovered, but much improved.  I'm still seeing my chiropractor for my back and neck.  The spine is still healing.  I had physical therapy for my right knee over the summer.  I am walking a lot now so I can strengthen that knee.

The accident happened just before my 40th birthday.  I was glad to be around for it and my upcoming 41st birthday this year. 

Nice to still be on this earth.

Even Dr. Doom is Blogging

Looks like everybody has a blog now.  Even the Lord of Latveria, Dr. Doom, the arch-enemy of the Fantastic Four.

Check out Dispatches From Latveria if you're brave enough to do it.

My Christmas Tree is Finally Up and Running!

I spent yesterday evening getting my tree out of my storage closet in my condo and setting it up.  That took a couple of hours.  I have so many decorations to put on it.  This year I put all of them up.  It's been a long time that I used all the tree decorations at the same time.  In recent years, I only put up some of them and left others in the box.  After all, Storm hasn't knocked over the tree in the last few years. 

I checked the tree this morning and it's still standing.  Storm is sleeping underneath it.

Update on Sally (The Mustang, my car)

Last Sunday afternoon, the car battery died on me while I was at Harvard Square.  I called AAA to jump-start it and drove it home.  I felt very frustrated which brought on another headache for me.  I get sinus headaches, menstral crap headaches and all other headaches all the time.

On Monday, I called Brookline Village Gulf and told the mechanic named Jim what happened.  Jim told me to leave the car there that night so he could work on it Tuesday.  I had to call AAA to jump-start the car again and drove it down there.  After I arrived at Brookline Village Gulf,  I left a message to Jim to check the battery and give the car an oil filter change because it needed an oil filter change.

During lunch the next day, I called Jim and he told me the fact that the battery was indeed dead and also my fan belt was cracked.  Jim told me that the belt could break at anytime.  I told him to go ahead and make the repairs that were needed.  Jim did that and also the oil filter change.

The car's been driving fine.  So far, so good.  However, my remote control doesn't work anymore.  That's the device the works the locks on the doors and the trunk.

I feel another headache coming...