I was going to write today but my neighbours have decided that this is…. GRRRR… the day they’re going to drill/hammer through the damn wall. I get these fifteen-second windows in which I can think and write before… GRRRRRR… And I’m back with another snatched thought.
My intention was writing an article about last night but I haven’t been asked for one and I also know there’s not much point. I tend to concentrate on American news because that’s where my main political interests lie. Last night, however, was too big a story. *Everybody* will be writing about it and sending their 800 words to editors. So, I should probably…. GRRR… be thankful that my neighbours have chosen today for the latest home impro…. GGGGRRRRR… vements.
If I’m honest, I’m also a little wiped out. I enjoy doing the podcast but it’s a proper day of work. I might draw today. Or I might mow the lawn which I’ve continued to avoid because the… GRRRRreen bin is full. (See what I did there?)
In the meantime, I might as well use this blog post to update a few of the thoughts I had during the podcast but I didn’t really get chance to expand upon.
Yes, I don’t listen to… GRRRRRR… Stevie Wonder. I don’t exactly have an exhaustive musical library. Not much classical, nothing that’s really “pop”. I generally listen to what’s called “alternative music”, though that sometimes strays into genres. My current listening is Fiona Apple, Ariel Sharratt & Matthias Kom, The Dead South, and Warren Zevon.
My PhD: I don’t know how old I was when I got it and I really don’t care. I could figure it out but that’s certain to depress me. My education was delayed by a bad choice, going into computing on the back of crap A level results. They demolished my old… GRRRRRR… school a few years later. It was that bad. Did a degree in computer, hated it, became a programmer, hated it more, when back to college and found I wasn’t as dim as my school results suggested, so by the time I did my PhD, I was probably 5 or 6 years older than is usual, though still considerably younger than mature students.
Remembering quotes: never been great at memorising them. I’ve never been good at learning foreign languages for the same reason. I often wonder if it’s linked to the way my brain is wired. I’m pretty sure that I’m an Aspy but it’s never been diagnosed. I have so many of the classic symptoms of Asperger’s. I love (get obsessed to the point of sometimes upsetting me) with repetitive tasks (see my cross hatching). I’m best when I’m working “in the zone”. They call it “highly-focussed interests” but I just know that when I’m writing, I’m cut off from the world. I can often be like that in everyday life. It’s why I don’t drive. I know I’d forget where I am and freak out when I came out of my thoughts. Emerging from my inner monologues can be a horrible jarring experience. Then, of course, I have “sensory sensitivity”. This was the first symptom that made me look into Asperger’s. Certain noises and/or sensations can turn me into a blubbering mess. It’s hard to describe but I’ve had it since I was a baby. My mum noticed certain noises and textures could make me cry hysterically. I’ve not changed that much. I’m not going to name them because 1. I don’t want them weaponised against me (they have been in the past), but 2. even describing them gets me on edge.
What does this have to do with memory? I don’t know. I know how my brain works and I know that I find certain kinds of analysis really easy. I found computer programming easy. Politics I get instinctively. Writing too and reading if it’s something that interests me. If I have a talent – and I hate terming it like that – it’s that I’m gifted at certain analytical tasks but especially when they’re textual. Yet oddly I can’t remember things well. I have a good capacity to remember odd things I’ve read but never the detail. It’s like I have a photographic memory but only about shapes, not the patterns. Hmm… Perhaps that’s what I’m really saying. My brain sees shapes but finds it hard to recall details.
Oh, no GRRR in a while. They’ve gone quiet next door. Perhaps I’ll write something today after all. Or have I now already done that?
I’m confused.
