Existence is Wonderful

Enter The Cat Weirdo

2009-11-05T16:41:00.001-08:00

Well my brain still seems to be in "write about cats" mode, so readers uninterested in cats will just have to bear through another entry about them.

But to those of you who might consider yourselves fellow catgeeks out there, I pose the following: how many cats is "a lot"? I will offer my take on this below, but would be interested in others' thoughts.

Seeing as I finally managed to trap and adopt Shadow (shown above, brother and littermate to supertabbies Coraline and Brodie) on Monday, October 26, I now live with three fabulous felines.

And come the end of December, I'll be adopting one of my parents' cats as they (my parents) are moving out of state and this particular cat (a seven-year-old Siamese lady named Nikki) doesn't get along with their dog as it is (she's generally been fine with other cats, though).

Which will bring me to a grand total of four cats.

Upon hearing this news, a friend told me I was "heading into crazy cat lady territory". He may have been joking around somewhat, but that got me wondering...is four cats really a lot?

To me, that doesn't seem like that huge of an amount. Granted, most people I know who live with cats have two or maybe three, but I've certainly known people with more than four who seemed to be able to keep up with them all. It seems to be a pretty individual thing.

Essentially, the way I see it, whether or not you have "too many" cats is based less on numbers than on whether you have the resources (food, shelter, space, sanitation, means to provide healthcare) to care for them. For some people, one cat would be too many.

Moreover, it also depends on the cats' personalities and predilections. I know several people who have one cat and one cat only, not because they can't accommodate another from a resource standpoint, but because the resident feline is extremely territorial and won't permit other cats on the premises.

The house my partner and I just moved into is a 3-bedroom, 1-bath single-family detached residence, approximately 1016 square feet (not counting the attached/finished garage). I am still shocked beyond all get-out we were able to find anything remotely like this that was actually affordable to non-millionares like us in this area but I guess we just got lucky. And so far things seem to be going really well since the kittens joined us.

We're currently still restricting feline access to just the three bedrooms, the bathroom, and the adjoining hallway. The living room/kitchen areas still have minor remodeling projects going on, and I definitely don't think kittens mix well with either paint or power tools. Even so, we've yet to have any issues with untoward bodily functions or wanton acts of destruction beyond the occasional shredded kleenex under the bed.

I've got a good litterbox-cleaning routine established -- basically I scoop the poop (1) every morning before I shower, (2) in the afternoon when I get home from work, and (3) right before bed, so the activity is "rolled into" other maintenance-routine stuff I'm doing at those times anyway. And since I never let the boxes get really gross, the scooping itself takes a mere few minutes each time.

Of course, being youngsters, the kitties do get rather rambunctious during their high-energy periods of the day (which, thankfully, no longer seems to include "3 AM"). But the situation nonetheless doesn't feel overcrowded. Coraline has been a bit hissy and growly at Shadow since his arrival (especially if he dares go near her favorite spots on the bed!), but she seems to be settling down about his presence now and I even caught all three of them snuggling together under the bed last night (though, somewhat amusingly, as soon as Cora saw me, she looked over at Shadow and growled lightly).

And that's with the cats having access privileges to only about half the house. I am looking forward to letting them have free run of the place as I expect they'll enjoy birdwatching out the large picture windows on the front and side of the house, and I figure they'll each have plenty of room to stake out territories as they see fit. When Nikki arrives there will almost certainly be some more interesting territory stuff to work out, but I'm optimistic. I think having four cats is going to be awesome fun!

But I also think that four is just about the right amount for me (given my resources, available space, executive functioning, other commitments, and finances), and I don't plan on going over that. Any other cats who cross my path (so to speak) will be trapped, neutered, and returned to their outdoor homes if they're feral, or recommended to others who might be seeking to adopt if they're tame.

And on that note, I was reading about animal hoarders recently, and I think that sometimes when people end up in those situations, it's due to not properly distinguishing intentions from consequences.

Yes, there are probably some out there who think cats are like Pokemon ("I only need one more ginger tabby to complete the set!") but my guess would be that it's usually more of a "rescuing the cat means personally tending to the cat myself in my own home, so I'll just take this one home, even though I already have ten cats, because I can't trust anyone else to properly care for this one" thing.

And then some break in logic occurs where the person might assume that since they meant to give the cats a better life, the cats living with them must have better lives, even if in actuality they're all living in unhygenic and disease-promoting squalor.

To me, the potential for that kind of thing to happen seems like a really good reason not to overfocus on how well-intentioned you are. I've seen this happen in a lot of situations, not just with cats -- e.g., I've been in situations where someone has decided they're going to "help" me, and then get really weird and nasty if I say the help isn't helping.

It gets very tautological at that point -- "But how can you not think you're being helped? I'm trying to help you! I'm a good, nice person! Therefore, anything I do must be helping, even if you say it isn't, and even if some things seem worse!" It's like the person either

(a) blames the "help-ee" for being defective or defiant if their methods don't "work", or

(b) somehow blocks out the reality of what the situation actually looks like as a result of their "help", figuring that there's no way such good intentions can lead to anything actually bad, so what is happening must really be good, regardless of what it looks like to the "naysayers".

But I digress. Like most other people, I have a lot of good intentions, including the intention of helping cats when and where I can. But I do not have it in my head that every neglected/abandoned/homeless cat in the world needs to live with me. The consequences of holding to such a conviction would be lots of suffering and death, which are the exact things I want to help the cats avoid.

Coraline, Brodie, Shadow, and Nikki will be quite enough feline family for my home, and I'm setting a hard limit there at four as far as how many kitties I will actually live with at any given time. And of course they're all going to be spayed, neutered, vaccinated, etc.

Granted, they will also be the sort of cats who are allowed to sleep on the bed, who get "novelty boxes" set out for them in the morning (lately I've been taking empty tissue boxes and putting toys or old socks or catnip in them for the kitties to discover), and who will get to drink out of the bathroom sink if they so request it...and if that makes me some sort of cat-weirdo, so be it!

October 16 is National Feral Cat Day - Help Your Local Felines!

2009-10-16T10:52:00.000-07:00

Introduction

Homo Sapiens and Felis Catus have lived alongside one another for thousands of years. It is unknown exactly how or why these two species established contact -- most likely it something to do with human communities storing food, which attracted rodents, which in turn attracted any nearby felines.

But however it happened, humankind and felinekind ended up embarking on a course that has led to a very interesting relationship. Unlike domesticated dogs, cats seem capable of coexisting with humans in two very different ways -- that is, as housecats (who are "socialized" to humans and have regular close contact with us) or as feral cats (who are primarily social with other felines, and wary of humans though plenty live in yards and barns and alleys where they see humans now and again).

And while presently millions of cats live happily and healthily in human homes as companion animals or in comfortable, well-managed colonies outdoors, unfortunately many millions more are suffering and being killed every year -- feral cats especially.

Anyway, given my recent decision to adopt a few feral kittens (in addition to help out however I could with the colony they came from -- more on that later), I've lately done a bit of reading and research about cats, and the current state of the USA's feline population.

And...I was pretty horrified by some of what I found in some cases. According to some sources, 72% of cats who enter shelters are killed. The various stories of abuse, neglect, and "hoarding" situations faced by innumerable others also make for some truly awful reading indeed.

I was also amazed to learn that the cat population is so huge! In the United States alone, there were estimated to be about 81.7 million "pet" cats as of 2007, and estimates of the number of "feral" cats number in the tens of millions. According to the ASPCA, "In seven years, one female cat and her offspring can yield 420,000 cats."

That's a lot of cats!

So, while of course (as a lifelong Cat Person) I think cats are wonderful, and while I obviously wouldn't want them to go extinct, there doesn't seem to be much danger of that anytime soon. Quite the contrary in fact! No matter how many cats we manage to round up and take into clinics to be spayed or neutered, there are always going to be some producing kittens out there.

And given the Malthusian Kitty Nightmare faced by so many felines today (who end up in overcrowded shelters, hoarders' homes, or worse), the most responsible thing we naked apes can do is avoid setting things up for innumerable kittens to keep coming into the world every year.

This, of course, means that everyone who has a companion cat really ought to spay or neuter them. Not only will you avoid any chance of adding to the feline population, your cat will more than likely live longer and suffer far fewer health problems as a result of being altered.

But most people reading this, I'd wager, already know this.

Trap-Neuter-Return, Not Shelters, Best For Feral Cats

What a lot of people don't seem to be aware of is the plight of feral cats (who are the offspring of strayed, escaped, or abandoned domestic cats).

Hence, seeing as October 16 has been declared "National Feral Cat Day" by feral cat advocacy group Alley Cat Allies, I figured I would write a bit about the issues facing these felines, and what we humans can do to help mitigate them.*

Firstly and most importantly, it is crucial to understand that shelters are not sanctuaries.

While plenty of shelters certainly treat their charges well and do what they can to help adopt out the animals that come through their doors, they are not infinite in capacity.

If you happen to find or trap a feral cat, you do not want to bring him or her to a shelter, unless you are going there to take advantage of the veterinary or spay-neuter clinics sometimes available at shelters.

Adult feral cats are not likely to be "adoptable" (given they've generally come to be very cautious around humans), and would find prolonged confinement extremely stressful. Bringing a feral cat to a shelter is more likely to end in execution than anything else -- as noted by Alley Cat Allies, "For feral cats, the kill rate in pounds and shelters rises to virtually 100%."

This is not to say that shelters provide no valuable services, and I am not saying nobody should adopt a shelter animal -- on the contrary, shelters are one of the best places to get companion animals, as you know you are getting one who really needs a home. However, they are neither equipped nor staffed to deal appropriately with feral cats, and hence, it does not make sense to bring feral cats there.

There are a number of guidelines you can follow to identify a feral versus a stray or lost cat, (and act accordingly) but in general if the cat does not approach you, vocalize in your presence, or (if trapped) calm down and start acting housecattish within a short period, you may very well be dealing with a feral feline.

If this is the case, and you see no evidence of ear tipping (a mark some clinics use to permit identification of already-altered cats), or if the cat is obviously "intact", then your best bet is to look into local Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) resources.

TNR basically consists of trapping unaltered feral cats, having them spayed or neutered (and ideally vaccinated against rabies, etc.), and then returning them to their colonies. There, they can live out their lives in the manner to which they are accustomed -- minus much of the spraying, fighting, yowling, medical problems, and endless pregnancies that can ensue in groups of cats whose members aren't "fixed".

Now, some folks seem to think that the only way to "deal with" feral cats is to round up large groups of them and kill them. However, feral cat colonies only exist where there is an ecological niche for them to inhabit, making eradication not just needlessly cruel, but ineffective, as new cats will tend to move in to fill the void left.

TNR in combination with appropriate vet care (vaccination, etc.) and humane colony management solves many, many problems both for cats living in feral colonies and their human neighbors.

TNR or Adoption - Both Good Choices for Feral Kittens

Another thing you can do is, if you see kittens in your local colony, trap and foster or adopt them.

Of course you won't be able to adopt all the kittens yourself and you are unlikely to find homes for them all, meaning that it is probably best to TNR the majority as soon as they are physically developed enough for surgery (usually around 8 weeks / 2 lbs).

But there are certainly good reasons to take in feral kittens if it so happens you're seeing them around and are looking to adopt anyway.

For one thing, it is one way of helping control the size of the colony, which reduces the chances of it attracting the attention of annoyed neighbors (who might be compelled to call Animal Control or -- and yes, this has happened -- get out the shotgun). Even if you only adopt one or two cats, that's two cats who aren't going to be reproducing ad infinitum outdoors and who will have lifelong access to food, shelter, and appropriate medical care.

For another thing, feral-born kittens who end up in shelters or Animal Control pounds (whether due to colony "round-ups" or well-meaning individuals under the impression that the shelter will find all the kittens homes) are at very high risk of being killed (in order to make room for more "sociable" kittens who come in from people's homes, and/or those without fleas or worms or parasites or other illnesses common to feral babies).

Some shelters may have fostering programs where volunteers or employees work with the kittens, get any medical problems they might have treated, and in general prepare them for successful adoption, but again, there's a capacity limit at work here. So in summary, when it comes to feral-born kittens, their best chance at life is going to be either via adoption into permanent homes or TNR.

Felines I Have Known Of Late

My own interest in feral cats began when I started noticing them in and around my SO's parents' yard. Matt's parents live fairly nearby us (in the same Silicon Valley city of Santa Clara, California, USA) so we've been over there a fair bit for dinner and such over the years post-college.

Matt's parents have also had cats of their own (or rather, been owned by particular cats) for as long as I've known them, and his mom has a long history of rescuing "hard case" kittens that weren't expected to survive.

Toby (their current feline-in-residence, shown below as a kitten and as an adult) was one that I actually caught next to their garage on Father's Day 2008. She was about four weeks old and had a really awful respiratory infection (it involved sneezing blood at one point) that took at least a month of antibiotics to effectively treat, but she recovered very well, and has since been spayed, vaccinated, and so on.

Toby when she was first found - tiny, unkempt, and very sick!

Toby as a healthy grownup kitty (we are pretty sure her father must have been a Maine Coon...)

I couldn't adopt Toby myself then because my apartment at the time did not allow pets, but since Matt's parents took her in I basically got to be Kitty Auntie, a role I enjoy to this day (Toby seems to like it when I come over because I am the only person who lets her play with the water cooler).

Then, on October 2, 2009 (after having seen a number of kittens coming around, and seeing as I finally lived somewhere I'd be able to house cats) I decided it was time to start taking a bit more in the way of action.

That was the evening I took in Coraline and Brodie (shown below, taking over my computer chair!), who have so far been doing wonderfully in their new home with me and Matt.

Brodie (L) and Coraline (R) approve of Ikea upholstery fabric

These two little ones have now been taken to the vet, where they were weighed, thermometered, stethoscoped, de-wormed, prescribed some flea treatment, and poop-sampled (to check for parasites, etc.).

And, according to their exam results, overall they are quite healthy. They are eating well, drinking plenty of water, and their weight at time of examination (about 2 lbs) was right on target for eight-week-old kitties.

The only concerns that came up were that Brodie appears to have a very slight heart murmur (which the vet said wasn't likely dangerous; still, I'm going to make sure it gets monitored), and that both kitties have coccidia (a protozoan that can infest the small intestine and cause gastrointestinal problems in kittens and puppies). They are now on antibiotics to inhibit the reproductive capacity of the protozoa, which should be killed off by the kittens' immune systems as they develop over the next month.

And as far as getting acclimated to humans goes, I think their actions speak for themselves.

Neither kitten has bitten me or Matt since the very first night, they're hissing less, and they're even coming up on the bed to play! Today I even heard purring for the very first time, after combing Coraline's fur.

They're also obviously getting more independent of one another (while still remaining very close -- they sleep in a kittenpile and groom one another regularly) -- initially they would cry whenever they were separated for whatever reason, but now they're occasionally venturing out individually to explore different parts of the house.

So, all in all, Coraline and Brodie appear to be well on their way to the happy housecat's life, and I am more than honored to share my home with them. Their situation is different from Toby's, as they're older and more skittish than she was upon being found, but it just goes to show you that given the right environment kittens coming from various sets of circumstances can thrive.

Then, you have situations like that of Susie (shown below, wrapped in a towel ready to take her medicine).

Susie was trapped on the same night as Brodie and Coraline. She is actually an older sibling of theirs (from the same wily mother), about seven months old.

We (that is, me and Matt and Matt's mom and a cat-rescue-expert neighbor of theirs who kindly lent me her humane trap for the evening) had actually been attempting to trap Coal (the mama kitty) so we could get her fixed, but Coal wasn't having any of that (my guess is she's "trap-wise").

However, it was also great that we managed to catch Susie because we'd been noticing her around for months and she'd looked to be extremely ill and in need of veterinary care. And, as it turned out, she was -- she had pneumonia, and weighed a mere three pounds!

Apparently she'd had a really horrible respiratory infection that had gone into the lungs, and her heart was having trouble too due to fluid buildup. Combined with the malnutrition caused by her illness (and the fact that the other cats pushing her away from the food), she was really in awful shape.

But, happily, two weeks of antibiotics and a ready supply of food (she's been convalescing in Matt's mom's house, where she mostly hides but is at least safe from predators and re-infection), Susie is looking amazingly better! She's gained at least a pound, her eyes are cleared up, and you can no longer hear her chest rattling when she breathes. We will find out soon whether she's well enough to be spayed yet, and if so we will get that done and then return her to her kitty family outdoors.

So, that's about where I'm at now with this whole helping-the-ferals business. Next on the agenda is to TNR at least two of the "teenage" cats that have been coming around and who look just about ready to start going into heat, etc. (eek!). I don't know how much of this I will be able to logistically manage, but I am figuring whatever I can do is better than nothing. Plus, it's not like I'm doing it all by myself -- it's really a collaborative effort between me, Matt, his mom, and the aforementioned neighbor lady, all of whom have different things to add to the effort.

In Conclusion...

Obviously not everyone can pay attention to every issue at once, and certainly if you are off saving the whales or advocating for healthcare reform or building houses in third-world countries, you should not sit there feeling guilty because you aren't currently able to help the kittycats.

But for those of you who are looking to donate some time or other resources to support your local feral cats, there are a number of practical and informational resources you can access:

(1) Alley Cat Allies is a group I just discovered recently, but I really like their philosophy and focus (that is, they oppose the indiscriminate killing of cats, recognize that feral cats are particularly vulnerable to this, and promote and provide educational and other materials to help people conduct TNR in their areas).

There's a ton of good stuff on their site, way too much to link specifically to here, but I definitely recommend checking them out.

(2) Neighborhood Cats, another group with a similar focus to Alley Cat Allies. They're based in New York City, but their site has some good info on it for people living anywhere.

(3) The study Evaluation of the effect of a long-term trap-neuter-return and adoption program on a free-roaming cat population, which came out to show an impressive 66% population decrease in one feral colony following implementation of humane colony management

(4) Your local vet office or humane society, from whom you may be able to borrow or purchase humane traps and get further advice on community resources. Many communities offer low-cost spay/neuter/vaccinate clinics, whether year-round or on special days, so be sure to ask about these.

(5) Not specifically or solely about feral cats, but Sarah Hartwell's Messybeast Cat Resource Archive is worth a read for anyone even remotely interested in cats. Ms. Hartwell (who is based in the UK) is quite frankly the most thorough and prolific writer on all things feline I've ever come across, and I would challenge any Cat Person to start reading this site after dinner and still get to bed on time!

* I realize not everyone cares about cats (feral or otherwise). Some humans might consider it a waste of time to bother with helping them when there are so many humans suffering in the world.

And, given the demographic variety that has historically tended to visit this blog, I can conceive of at least a few readers being inclined to make statements like "but if an asteroid hits the earth or we're all killed off by evil robots of our own creation, then it really isn't going to matter whether people now do anything to help cats, so why not just donate to existential risk management?"

And...in response to anyone thinking along any of those lines, I somehow doubt anything I could say or write here could justify my perspective to you, so I am not going to bother trying. Suffice to say that

(a) I think it's perfectly possible to care about and work toward improving the welfare of more than one species at the same time,

and (b) as far as "existential risk" goes, I'd say that for humanity to lose its capacity for compassion, or its appreciation of the myriad incarnations of awesomeness (e.g., kitties!) the universe has managed to evolve, would be a huge risk, certainly one as great as any asteroid.

Kittens! Need I say more?

2009-10-05T22:24:00.000-07:00

Well, I guess there is a bit more to say, but first, a picture:

These little ones are feral rescue kittens, approximately 6 - 7 weeks old, and currently roaming around my bedroom. They were very scared at first (who wouldn't be?) but now it has been three days and they are settling in nicely.

The one on the left is a girl (who has been named Coraline -- yes, like the Neil Gaiman character, as she's very brave and very clever!), and the one on the right is a boy (who has been named Brodie, just because it seems to suit him). They moved in with me this past Friday (I'd been intending to trap them for a while and finally got the time and materials to do it), and my hands have been quite full (sometimes literally!) since then.

Anyway I know not everyone agrees with the notion of "keeping pets" to begin with but frankly I don't think anyone who has ever lived with a cat (or two, or five...) could claim to be keeping them in the manner one might keep a couch or a stamp collection. I don't consider cats (or dogs, for that matter) to be anything anyone owns, but I do think different species can coexist happily so long as there's respect.

And for kittens like Coraline and Brodie, being adopted is the best chance they have of living long and happy lives (which they hopefully will, as now they're on their way to being vaccinated, spayed/neutered, etc.). On that note I am very happy to offer them a place in my home for as long as they live and I hope I can manage to do right by them.

Work, Lack Thereof, and Opportunity

2009-09-10T21:10:00.000-07:00

Well, seeing as my employer recently announced plans to shut down the facility where I work in San Jose, California, I thought I might take this opportunity to actually discuss some of what my job as an electrical engineer specializing in electromagnetic interference and compatibility has tended to consist of.

In other words, expect some posts on such exciting things as grounding, bonding, and shielding (oh my!) in this space, because that stuff is actually pretty interesting, and I think it would be neat to help propagate some knowledge about it.

Of course I will not reveal any proprietary information online -- like most engineers, I've had to read, acknowledge, and sign agreements not to publish or otherwise distribute internal data.

Hence, nothing I am going to discuss here is actually anything I couldn't have said before the layoff announcement -- rather, it's just that up until now, I've preferred to keep a fairly wide separation between my personal "online life" and career.

Now, though, I'm looking at things somewhat differently.

I figure that in this day and age, more and more prospective employers are going to be Googling their applicants -- meaning that for us bloggers, regardless of whether we've more frequently blogged about signal integrity, our pets, or what we had for breakfast, our future boss might very well come across our online writing.

And for those of us whose best shot at getting hired isn't likely to come via our steely-eyed gaze, firm handshake, or melodious, appropriately-timed laughter, I figure there's probably no harm in putting some information about our work skills and relevant experience up in our usual Internet haunts.

Of course I'm also starting up the job search on other fronts -- even though the earliest I'll actually be unemployed is October 27 of this year, I don't see any point in waiting around. I've updated my resume and am peeking around to see what opportunities are in the area.

One thing I am definitely trying to do as well is change industries, as while my present job has had its good points, I'm just not all that excited about airplanes.

What I really want to do is get into something pertaining to medical devices / biotech -- I mean, they have to need EMI engineers to make sure all that equipment doesn't emit too much and isn't too susceptible to interference.

Seriously, I would like nothing more than to put whatever engineering skills I've managed to obtain toward things that support lifesaving equipment, biogerontology research, communication devices, mobility devices, or anything along those lines.

If I'd had my stuff together when I graduated college I'd have looked for something like that prior to now, but it took me ages to figure out what I actually wanted to do -- and hence, rather than seeing this layoff as anything to moan and whine over, I'm choosing to see it as an opportunity to move into something more related to things I'm passionately interested in.

On Longevity, Reality, and Critical Thinking

2009-09-01T13:05:00.000-07:00

Every now and then, I receive a random e-mail from a random person along the lines of, "Hi! I found your blog. Can you tell me how I can live forever?"

Generally I just ignore these letters, as, really, I figure either their authors are credulous beyond all get-out or engaging in some sort of bizarre joke. But seeing as I've received a spate of these comments privately recently, I just wanted to state for the record that if you are looking to random bloggers to "tell you the path to living forever", um, well, you might want to work on those critical thinking skills.

Seriously. Critical thinking is utterly invaluable if you actually care about what reality is actually like. And you don't need to be any kind of super-genius to do it successfully, nor do you need to take special classes in it. There's plenty in the way of free resources, such as:

- The Skeptic's Dictionary has a good page consisting of links to Critical Thinking Mini-Lessons.

(Also check out their Too Good To Be True page for a nifty list of examples of opportunistic pseudoscientists and scammers marketing their crap.)

- A classic: Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit. I learned about this in the very first "Introduction to Engineering" class I took in school, wherein Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark was assigned reading.

- Via Respectful Insolence, a concise summary of how to know you're doing science wrong (emphasis mine):

If you don't make mistakes, you're doing it wrong.
If you don't correct those mistakes, you're doing it really wrong.
If you can't accept that you're mistaken, you're not doing it at all

...and many, many more that you should be able to find pretty easily.

There are also things you can do just in the course of your everyday life to flex your critical thinking abilities and thereby strengthen them. Whenever you encounter a billboard or advert, try considering what is actually being offered versus the emotions being invoked by the ad's imagery, sound effects, etc. Learn to recognize when false causal relationships are being drawn between events and actions, and don't just go along with it when people are doing this. Learn the difference between "rational thinking" and "rationalizing" (e.g., if someone tries to claim that Santa Claus is real, but just doesn't think poor children deserve presents, you've probably got a rationalizer on your hands!).

Heck, if you've got a bit of free time, you can even do "probability experiments" like the ones I did as a kid of about eleven, which entailed flipping coins many, many times and writing down the heads/tails results (this was how I determined that no, I most likely did not have the ability to Use The Force). Sounds silly, but can be very illustrative of (for instance) how having too small a sample set can be misleading, and how more data can reduce the chance of drawing an incorrect conclusion.

Another fun and useful activity is to visit Wikipedia and look up a subject you've seen a lot of people arguing about. Then, in addition to the actual article, read its talk page. Because Wikipedia's stated policy is to present a "neutral point of view", there tends to be a lot of quibbling over how this is to be accomplished, and on what sources are actually acceptable and valid references.

E.g., the talk page for 'Evolution' has a 40-something page archive of discussion and debate between the various parties vying for control of the article's content. Seriously, if you want to see various forms of human reasoning (and rationalizing) in action, these talk pages are a great resource. Moreover, some articles' talk pages nicely illustrate "manufactured controversy" in action, and it is very useful to learn the difference between a real controversy and one that has been "framed" as such by folks with an obvious agenda (case in point: those people who keep saying Obama's birth certificate is a fake).

Anyway, however you do it, the important thing is to get your brain geared up to more accurately assess reality, and the claims people make about it.

See, there are plenty of hucksters out there who would probably be more than willing to sell you their Super-Longevity Bio-Kit or some other quackish nostrum. And despite not being a biologist myself, I think I'm at least informed enough on the subject of biogerontology to be able to tell you that anyone who claims to have the "path to immortality" is either deluded or lying. Hence, taking people who make such claims seriously is likely to be a waste of time for everyone involved, and obviously over time this kind of thing is likely to lead to less actual useful real-world work being done.

I once encountered a person who claimed to know a "real-life immortal", that of course I could learn about only through buying and reading his upcoming book about this person (who had apparently trusted him, the author, with this 'special knowledge'). And I don't believe for a minute that I "missed an opportunity" by dismissing these claims and refusing to let that author hijack the discussion. Now, if that author had acknowledged he'd written a fantasy novel in which he explored the various social and technical implications of extreme longevity through the protagonist, then I might have been interested. But as there was no such acknowledgement, I didn't figure I was losing anything in my reticence to entertain this author's storytelling.

All that said, really it seems preposterous that I should even need to say any of this.

If anyone has Internet access sufficient to permit them to find my blog and e-mail me, they also have access to (in addition to plentiful critical-thinking resources) a tremendous amount of actual scientific writing (and no, I don't mean "press releases", I mean stuff written by biologists and others actually working on interesting scientific/medical quandaries). But the fact that I do get these comments has made me wonder if maybe some people genuinely just don't know this stuff is out there; hence this post.

Many primary sources are locked up in journals you have to pay to read, but if you're really interested you might be able to get access through a local or university library (especially if you're a student). And I've been told by at least one practicing biologist that sometimes if you express interest in a paper, you can get a copy e-mailed to you by its author if you ask politely (note that they do not HAVE to send you a copy, there isn't a law about it, it's just something you can try).

For free (well, free presuming again you have Internet access), you can get a sense of what research is being done by searching the PubMed database for something like "human longevity".

A cursory search for these terms, for instance, reveals (among many others) the following:

- SIRT1 Markedly Extends Replicative Lifespan if NAD(+) Salvage is Enhanced.

- A functional EXO1 promoter variant is associated with prolonged life expectancy in centenarians.

- Increasing longevity through caloric restriction or rapamycin feeding in mammals: common mechanisms for common outcomes?

- Centenarians--a useful model for healthy aging? A 29-year follow-up of hospitalizations among 40,000 Danes born in 1905.

You won't be able to read the full text of very many papers that come up, but you can check out the abstracts in a lot of cases, and even that is going to tell you a heck of a lot more about research reality than asking some random blogger how you can reach the most extreme outcome you can come up with.

(Though of course this only works if you are actually interested in reality, and if you're genuinely serious in asking "how can I live forever?", I have to say I am rather skeptical that this is the case...)

I've written a few pieces that reference some of the Actual Research Being Done(TM), but this has been entirely and (I would think) obviously from the layperson's perspective. I don't have, or pretend at having, any special expert knowledge about longevity...and I sure as heck don't have a pipeline to the Fountain of Youth. Nobody does.

Here in the real world, the best any of us can do if we want longer, healthier lives for our loved ones and ourselves is contribute toward actual real-world things that promote health, life, and solid research. And in order to figure out what projects are valid and worth supporting, or worth proposing and starting ourselves, critical thinking is utterly essential. Learn it, practice it, and use it, and while you probably won't get to enjoy whatever comforts you might have previously been gaining via wishful/magical thinking, you will be better equipped to do things that actually make a positive difference in the real world.

In other words, if you're thinking in terms of "living forever", you're doing it wrong. And if you have any motivation behind this sentiment that actually relates to improving healthcare for people of all ages (including the very elderly), you'd best find a way to ground those motivations in something practical and feasible in the present.

If, however, you're looking for a palliative to your existential angst, sorry, you're going to have to look elsewhere than here.

It's Alive!

2009-08-26T23:02:00.000-07:00

...meaning my Internet connection is now viable in the new dwelling, and I am now mostly moved.

I will probably not be posting a lot for a while still because I am still getting settled in (and my routines are all messed up as a result, meaning I've been forgetting things like sunscreen and vitamins and my work badge...not to mention that being short and lacking in gross motor skills means my lower legs are pretty banged up from whacking into things on the floor I've been stepping over).

But, still, I like the new place a lot and I think it will be quite conducive to more and better writing and other projects, not in the least because now I can actually FIND more of my books, music, etc., and I have room to organize office supplies and art things and such.

I am tired now and not going to write a lot but here is a picture of my desk in the new office room (sorry for the blurriness, I am using a different camera than usual that has no flash on it because my primary "good" digital camera broke recently and I still need to get it fixed):

Temporarily Disappearing

2009-08-17T10:56:00.000-07:00

...as the phone line and hence the DSL at my apartment is being switched over to the new house tomorrow (Tuesday 8/18/09), and as it will probably take a few days to get the Internet stuff hooked up following that, I will likely be scarce online for the week to come. Not that I update every day in the first place, but I figured I'd post this just in case there were any complications resulting in a longer-than-anticipated disappearance.

So far things have gone mostly smoothly but I am kind of irked and suspicious of the phone/Internet company's apparent policy whereby you can't even ORDER your DSL until after the phone line has been installed and activated at the new location. Which means we might have to wait through several days of mail for the router, etc., to even arrive.

In any case, hopefully once all this is settled I'll be able to post yet more pictures of house-progress and of course get back to posting more regularly on my usual Subjects of Tremendous Interest.

What Equality Isn't

2009-08-12T00:09:00.000-07:00

Equality, as I see it, is not about people who fall within a certain narrow range of strengths/weaknesses all being nice to each other ("because inside we're all the same").

Equality, as I see it, has to do with recognizing that no, we are not necessarily all the same, inside or otherwise -- but that this is not something to bemoan, but rather, to acknowledge and address and actually deal with.

Yes, some differences between people may be superficial, but deeper differences exist as well. This does not make us "aliens amongst aliens"; we share in common probably more than we differ, simply for being people.

But still we vary, and while certainly any one of us may have preferences for some variations over others, or different reactions to the existence of some variations, etc., it is paramount to at least accord people with variations that differ from our own the presumption of agency.

EDIT: What I mean by "accord people with variations that differ from our own the presumption of agency" is basically "understand that even two people with the same type of variation might differ in their opinions about that variation, and therefore, it is not good to assume that everyone who has a certain variation 'should' have the same exact opinion about it." If that makes any sense. I know I am not being very clear here but I am not sure how to say this yet I guess.

When Nerds Move House...

2009-08-11T22:08:00.000-07:00

...we end up dealing with such fascinating challenges as "How To Sort Math Books According To Type Of Math".

That aside, I am feeling considerably less surly tonight than last night, and I am sure the lovely Wall of Books we've now established in the new house (observe below) have something to do with this:

(eeeee! Books!)

And then we have more fun in the living room...this time fun that sounds like the beginning of a joke. (As in, "A duck, a robot, and a murloc are sitting on a mantelpiece...")

Also, we now have grounded outlets (the house is California-old, having been built in 1954, and until yesterday all the outlets were the 2-prong sort, and many of them were broken). And they are the SQUARE HEADED KIND! Of all the American socket variations, this is quite possibly my favorite.

Some Thoughts On Privilege and Pointing Out Consequences

2009-08-10T23:48:00.000-07:00

I probably don't have the bandwidth or energy for a big public exchange about this kind of thing right now but...sometimes it boggles me to pieces to encounter people who seem to really get it with regard to one kind of privilege, but then (seem to) totally fail when it comes to other kinds.

I know everyone is different, and that peoples' unique experiences can shape us to a far greater degree at any given moment than what demographic(s) we could be sorted into. I also definitely don't expect everyone to agree with me, let alone on everything, and certainly not immediately! I realize that really explicating some kinds of issues takes time, and it takes moments when you just wonder why you bother, and it takes making mistakes, and it takes sometimes going off about something even when you don't have the most subtle and articulate words at your disposal.

And...as someone not exactly known for subtlety (I seem to tend toward saying nothing or saying too much...such is the way of things for some of us), I've definitely had to interface with the question of what the difference is between being blunt versus being a jerk. I don't want to be a jerk, and I try not to be.

[Also I know I have a tendency to focus on my own "stuff" when I write. But really, the only reasons I do this are (a) I don't need to ask myself for permission to do so, and (b) I am not so much into interrogating others; I figure they will share what they want to share if they think it's relevant.]

I also realize that nobody likes to be checked on their privilege, or assumed to even have privilege in a given area (goodness knows I've not found it pleasant when I've experienced it).

And I realize that in attempts to call people out on what looks like it could be privilege talking I could be wrong (e.g., the person could actually turn out to be a member of the same demographic as me in some context only I assumed they weren't for whatever reason).

In summary, while I may not really care what people think of me socially (as in, I don't care a lick if people think I'm "cool" or not, or if they think I'm a big dork or whatever) I do aim to be respectful and ethical in my dealings with others. If I fail at this I certainly want to know, but hopefully it is not too much to ask that people offer the same considerations in return.

In other words, if I attempt to point out the potential negative consequences for [group] of saying [x] (e.g., "all people with [diagnosis] need [Therapy Q] otherwise they're inevitably going to be institutionalized!"), this does not mean I am trying to censor you, or "sugarcoat" anything, or that I don't have the first clue how bad things can get for certain people, etc.

Additionally, I am not assuming that you yourself are horrendously ignorant and obviously have no experience with [subject] when I attempt to offer my perspective on [subject]. I am just simply offering my perspective, not even demanding a response, not demanding anything, just hoping (and, in some bold cases, requesting) that you at least take what I've written into consideration.

This doesn't behold you to anything, obviously...I guess I just hope that at some point, human groupings that want to call themselves "civilizations" will have higher standards for what they consider to be "civilized". Toward this end I certainly invite and encourage people to call me out on it when I am acting as part of the problem in this regard -- and hopefully if I presume to attempt the same on occasion, this will not be taken as my trying to "dictate others", etc.

The Move Goes Ever On and On

2009-07-30T22:52:00.001-07:00

...or at least, it's beginning to feel like it these days. I'm not blogfading or anything, just really busy and really tired. I gave notice today; Matt and I have to be out of the apartment completely by mid/late August now, as we told the landpeople that this was our last month of rent, so hopefully everything goes smoothly between now and then.

Random snippets of recent occurrences:

- I am horrible at packing books. I should probably never work in a library, unless my goal is to appear on Jeopardy at some point before I get fired. I managed to empty our main living room bookshelf last night, but not without ending up sitting on the floor for several hours trying not to read every single thing I picked up!

I think I'm a text addict.

The result was really weird too -- given the eclectic collection of stuff on that shelf, I had bits and pieces from Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, a 2006 Scientific American article on rotavirus, Don Delillo's White Noise (a book I like the word-patterns in but can't really make head or tail of), and several rather silly Christmas poems from the 1986 Ideals annual dancing through my head throughout the evening...

- In looking for "music to paint walls and clean hardwood floors by", I was very happy to have access to downloadable MP3s (CD Baby and amazon.com lately).

I am utterly endeared to what would probably be termed "pretentious progressive art-rock", most recently Phideaux. The album Ghost Story (EDIT: oh, and Doomsday Afternoon too -- gah, I am so happy that this kind of utterly achingly beautiful music is being made!) in particular is a thing of beauty if you happen to like longish multi-layered songs with fuzzy guitars, clear melodic vocals, and lyrics involving the words "shadows", "universe", "darkness", and such.

- My copy of Future Stuff arrived! (Mark Plus, did yours arrive yet?)

I've not read through the whole thing yet, but I've read enough to confirm that yes, there is an entry for a TV set with legs. I guess the idea was that you'd be able to watch MTV on it and it would "gyrate to the music" or something. Somehow it doesn't seem to have quite caught on (you think?).

Most of the book, though, is actually fairly tame for gee-whiz-future! standards. Aside from the aforementioned walking TV and a few other fun frivolities (the very first entry in the book features the Moller 400 flying car), the vast majority of the items listed sound like the kind of "As Seen On TV!" stuff you might find at the local Dollar Emporium.

E.g., one page describes a "talking VCR remote" that verbally guides you through the programming process. Another gushes excitedly about a "self-stirring saucepan". Another is about a self-cooling pillow. Another is for, I kid you not, something (a dry mix of spices?) called "Pickle Quick", which...quickly pickles your pickles, I guess.

(I've spent a lot of time recently washing paintbrushes in this here kitchen...)

Anyway, sorry if my posts have been lacking in substance lately. I just don't want to post about important stuff unless I have the energy/time to give it justice. (And I certainly don't want to, at least for a while, get into posting things that are going to make me feel like I have to stay up until 1 AM responding to all the wrongness on the Internet.)

But definitely expect more posts on brains, robots, longevity, autism, and the occasional cute kitten in the near but non-specific future!

Garage Door Is Wonderful

2009-07-19T00:51:00.001-07:00

OK, I had to share a picture of the supremely awesome garage door on the house I am in the process of moving into (we are currently in the "minor repairs and renovations" phase).

The house itself is, I've learned, a mid century modern ranch, with particular features characteristic of 1950s postwar architecture: large picture windows (on the front and on the side facing the yard/patio), low profile roof, and so on.

I had never really thought much about this style of house, and always sort of fancied myself in some little steep-roofed Victorian, complete with gables and carved balustrades and secret-passage nooks. No idea why, possibly my East Coast origins or the storybooks I read that often featured such houses.

But, I have to say, the whole MCM thing is growing on me. Given my longtime fascination and delight with all things retrofuture, living in a home straight out of the "Our Friend, The Atom" area has its appeal!

Once we get it fixed up nicely I plan on going around and taking photos and captioning them with things like "The World of 2009!", and pointing out things like...oh, the way we have things like nifty flat-screen monitors now, BUT we're also still using things like gas stoves, etc.

Anyway, though, back to the garage door -- this garage door is, as far as I can tell, the house's original door, and they literally don't make them like this anymore (at least not on a "go down to the Home Depot and buy an exact replacement" scale). The challenge in saving it so far has been the fact that the previous owners had converted the garage, probably sometime in the 1960s or 1970s (the house itself was built in 1954), into a family room. And in doing so, they not only nailed the door shut but removed the hinge hardware and put a layer of fiberglass insulation and paneling over the inside surface. So we've been ripping all that out, and if all goes well tomorrow we may actually manage to open the garage door, which will be the first time in decades it's been open.

Which, you know, is kind of cool.

(And, no, I am not going to turn this into an architecture blog or anything, I just figure now and then it is interesting to write about things that are actually sort of physically going on in life, not just things I happen to be thinking about or studying. And there's also a lot about houses that makes me want to wax philosophical for some reason, which I might get into later, but I have been painting most of the day and am completely wiped, so bedtime!)

EDIT: We got it open!! And it works! Yay! Mini-timeline appears below:

Initial state: converted garage. The door is covered on the inside with painted paneling.

We took off the paneling (the guy in the dust mask is Matt, my SO) and found...fiberglass insulation and a giant picture mural thing!

We had to tear down the little workroom on the side of the garage in order to get at the garage hardware. But it's a good thing we did because we found...lots of termite tunnels. We knew there were subterranean termites based on the inspections but it is really good to find where they actually seem to be coming in, so you can plug up their entryway, etc.

Almost there! The hardware has been reattached and is, amazingly, actually functional. And the door itself did not seem to have any termite damage...the termites much preferred the unpainted wood framing that was holding the insulation in, apparently!

....and it's open! Yay! (I have no idea why I am so excited about this door and being able to open it, but, well, I am. :P)

Comment Policy Reminder (To All You Anons)

2009-07-14T22:22:00.000-07:00

I am glad to create a more accessible blog, and it was learning that some people found the login system inaccessible that compelled me to allow anonymous comments. I am pleased that so far I have not been inundated with spam.

However, I have been receiving comments from (most likely) multiple "anonymouses". And y'all aren't using anything, not even an initial, to distinguish yourselves.

And...while obviously this is not a great moral outrage, it is annoying, and makes it really difficult to keep track of discussions, and it frankly compels me not to respond to any of those comments because I don't have any kind of a "distinguishing reference".

So, I will repeat here a point from this blog's comment policy:

if at all possible, please sign your comments with some sort of distinguishing nickname. Or your initials. Or even initials that aren't actually yours. Or a single letter, like "A" or "J", or heck, even a number. Just something so that I don't end up dealing with five different "anonymouses" commenting on the same post and having to somehow guess who said what. That kind of thing gets incredibly confusing really quickly.

Posting as "anonymous" with no other indicators or initials or anything does not make you a terrible person or anything so please do not presume I am saying that. I am not. I am just saying I find it really confusing when people do that. So I am asking as a matter of courtesy that you distinguish yourself in some way. This does NOT require a blogger login, all it requires is that you put an initial or even a little ASCII doodle or something after your comment in the text of the comment. Thanks.

(Comments disallowed on this post because I don't feel like prompting a big meta-discussion about comment policies!)

I Think I Need This Book!

2009-07-13T20:46:00.001-07:00

Entitled Future Stuff, and written by Malcolm Abrams and Harriet Bernstein, the Amazon page includes the following summary (from a library journal review):

...a consumer's guide to over 250 useful and time- and energy-saving products and services which will affect the way Americans work and play by the year 2000. They are at present on the drawing board, in production, or already being test marketed. Included are not only serious inventions like voice-activated computers and lenses to help the blind see, but also fun stuff like kiss moisturizers and bikinis which will change color with one's mood. The book gives the odds on availability, estimated time of arrival, price, and explains how each invention works.

Normally I wouldn't post about a book before actually obtaining and reading it, but this just sounds utterly hilarious and I couldn't resist calling it out. I mean, the cover has a WALKING TV ON IT. Yes, with legs. Wow. And I can't wait to read the "estimated times of arrival", that sort of thing is always interesting!

EDIT: Oh, and the book was originally published in 1989.

On The Feeding of Quirky Mammals, Part 4

2009-07-12T23:42:00.000-07:00

In this fourth and final installment of this series, I will be discussing matters of obtaining, choosing, and consuming food. That is, I will attempt to explore a possible range of responses to questions like, "How can I get food?", "What food should I get, and how much of it?", and "What options do I have in terms of places to eat when I am not at home (or even when I am?)"

How to Get Food

Obviously this is not a question I (or any other individual person living in a particular area in particular socio-economic circumstances) can answer definitively for everyone else. How you get food is going to depend on many, many variables, from what is available in your local area to your transportation options to whether or not you are getting whatever support you might need (as some individuals may not be able to shop on their own, etc., for a variety of reasons).

I can say, though, that from what I've personally experienced and learned of the experiences of others on the autistic spectrum (in addition to people with other disabilities, from ADHD to mobility issues), the mere existence of grocery stores within a several-mile radius of one's dwelling does not in any way guarantee that one is going to have an easy time getting food. The same goes for income variables -- again, simply having a job or some other means of financial support and hence being able to afford food does not guarantee that one will be able to actually obtain meals on a regular basis.

So, what might stand in the way of someone's getting food (presuming they don't live in a remote mountain hut with no source of income aside from milk from the family goat, which some people assuredly do, but which I personally lack familiarity with the situation of to the point where I don't feel qualified to comment)? Here's a short list:

- Transportation / Location

So, say there's a grocery store two miles from where you live. That isn't too far, but whether you can get there or not (much less on a regular basis) is going to depend on all kinds of things. If you drive yourself, getting there at least probably won't be much of an issue (unless parking is really crappy or something), but for those of us who don't drive, we've either got to:

...get a ride from someone we know,
...have someone who can bring us groceries,
...ride a bicycle or other human-powered vehicle,
...take the bus,
...or walk (or wheel, if one is a wheelchair user).

Needless to say, whether any of these things can be done at any given time is going to depend on a lot. If you're very fit and like walking, you may be able to walk (or bike) -- but not if the only access to the store entails going on a freeway. Moreover, in the walk/bike cases, you are obviously limited only to what you can personally carry (a wagon or bike trailer can help in this regard but still), and if you take the bus even if you could technically tote more than you could if walking, the bus driver and other passengers aren't likely to appreciate your taking up six rows of seats with your bags, etc.

Right now I am both lucky and very spoiled, as I live with someone who drives (and who is also quite the foodie, hence the likelihood of a bare cupboard here is close to nil).

But that was not always the case, and is not the case when I am home alone (e.g., when the one person I live with is away on business, which is infrequent but has occurred).

I have never lived completely alone but in college my and my roommates' schedules frequently didn't entail sit-down meals with all of us together, so there wasn't really an "eating prompt" in place for me for a long time, nor a consistently established means of food procurement. I survived on things like "energy bars" and frozen burritos from the gas station a block away from one of my apartments for a while. Occasionally I trekked down to the Trader Joe's on my bike, shoving as much as I could into a backpack, which generally meant I had better quality edibles for a little bit at least, but that brought its own problems with it -- e.g., the time it was so hot out that my milk spoiled on the way home!

Anyway, the point here is that you may well have trouble just getting to a local food source, and if you need routine like I do in order to do a lot of essential things, not having a consistent means of getting there can lead to serious badness.

I wish I could recommend or explain some general formula for EVERYONE to get access and transportation to groceries, etc., but unfortunately there simply isn't such a formula. About the only things I can really recommend are:

(a) If you have any choice in where you are going to live, try and pick a location within walking / biking / wheeling / skating / etc., distance from a source of groceries, preferably without any busy main roads to cross in between. You probably don't want to live right next to a grocery store or anything, as that would probably be noisy and annoying for other reasons, but if you can find a dwelling fairly close that will at least remove one potential hurdle.

(b) If you cannot find a location to live that meets criterion (a), then try and find something with access to public transit.

(c) If you cannot take public transit for whichever reason, and you don't know of anyone who might be able to periodically give you rides or pick up groceries for you, you may qualify for some sort of ParaTransit (transportation for people with disabilities, available in some areas) service. I have no experience with ParaTransit services, though, so I unfortunately cannot describe this process.

(d) Look around for online grocery delivery services in your local area. I've never used one of these so can't recommend any, but supposedly they exist and some people seem to like them.

Again, I know these are probably fairly "weak" suggestions but the problem is that anyone who doesn't have an established means of transportation for obtaining food is probably up against a lot of in-built accessibility problems. A lot of neighborhoods in many parts of the USA at least are so extremely car-centric that it almost seems as if the planners were not even considering non-drivers (or even disabled people who do drive, in many cases).

- Timing/logistics

This is a tough one, as even if you have a lovely grocery within easy transport or walking distance, your school, job, or other schedules and routines may not provide you with much time and opportunity to actually obtain food.

You may also end up in obnoxious situations like having a bus route that goes by the grocery but never when you are actually free to ride it -- e.g., a lot of bus lines I've noticed actually cut back on service on weekends. Moreover, even if you technically "have time" in the evenings, etc. for grocery shopping, if you've had other things going on that day already you might not consistently have brain left over for dealing with the store!

In any case, your goal is obviously to get food into your dwelling, and obviously that is going to take a certain amount of time every week, month, day, etc. And the first task in that regard is simply finding what opportunities actually exist timing-wise given your schedule, location, and transportation constraints.

It is probably good if you can find something consistent because this will likely be easier to keep to than simply a vague plan to go get stuff when you run out of something.

Though on the other hand, some people might only be able to get together the executive functioning to GO shopping when they've run out of something.

The key is to figure out what sort you are in this regard, and see to what extent you can match that with available resources. And if there's a mis-match, just remember that (and I realize this is much easier said than done) it's okay to seek help.

And of course there is the matter of planning. I am utter crap at coming up with things to have for dinner -- essentially I don't plan those sorts of meals, except very rarely when something occurs to me at random, and often it turns out to be some sort of semi-edible science project when I do (like last weekend's rice noodle/curry/carrot/soybean/ice cube disaster.).

Again, I am lucky enough to live with someone who seems to really like doing food-things (and who I can certainly end up sometimes helping to make pretty awesome tasty things), but if I did not have this lucky break, I would probably be living on lots of frozen Kashi meals and the like. Which wouldn't be a tragedy, but would certainly mean a less varied and probably more expensive diet.

The bottom line is that if you figure out that (for whatever reason) you just aren't going to be able to reliably and consistently create meals for yourself out of discrete ingredients, then you need to be able to get stuff that you (or someone you live with, or who helps you) can put together quickly and easily. And then when you go to the store, you need to make sure and stock up on this kind of thing, so you don't end up having "Ketchup Casserole with Circus Peanuts" or something similarly frightening five nights in a row.

- Sensory/information processing issues

There are some grocery stores I can usually navigate reasonably well -- such as the small Indian market down the street from my apartment. For me, an accessible store is generally (a) not too large (usually this means "less overwhelming"), (b) not crowded, and (c) organized in a way that makes sense to my brain.

For you, the criteria may be different -- e.g., you may be extremely sensitive to fluourescent lights (which really only bother me when they get to that dying-and-flickery stage or when I can hear them buzzing), or you may not be able to stand the smell of a particular thing, or you may only be able to use automatic checkstands, or any number of other things.

But in any case, sensory accessibility is definitely something you may well run into even if you have a conveniently located grocery in your neighborhood. And the first step to figuring out what to do about that is to figure out what is going on! If you are anything like me (which you may not be, but I am figuring I am probably not the only person out there like this), you may not even be able to recognize sensory overload when it is happening, and may not be able to figure out exactly what it is about some places that bothers you for a long time after going there.

When I was little I was apparently...a bit of a challenge to go shopping with because I was forever darting off, trying to find clothing racks to hide under or bookshelves to sit on, or spinny-chairs to spin on, etc.

Moreover, I also developed aversions to certain places that I now recognize to be sensory in nature -- like the one discount store that made my skin crawl due to the music they piped over the speakers and the weird yellowish lighting -- which at the time nobody could explain, least of all me.

And when I got a bit older, I developed habits like trying to wear headphones wherever I went (something that has happily been de-stigmatized immensely by the introduction of the portable MP3 player, yay!), and trailing my parents in the store with my face stuck in a book or magazine the whole way (I would follow by watching their feet). So really sensory issues are nothing new for me -- it's just not been than many years since recognizing them for what they were.

It may not be easy (especially at first) to figure out exactly why some places make you feel like you need to escape now (or, as in the case of the mall I grew up near, makes you start feeling really "out of it" the longer you are in it), but one clue is that if you find yourself avoiding a place, it's possible you may just feel crappy and confused when you're there.

A lot of people I've noticed seem to blame this kind of thing on "social anxiety" or even agoraphobia, and some people may certainly have those things (by themselves or in conjunction with sensory issues). But having been through a lot of frustration due to trying to put into practice the advice of people who said I was "just scared" in certain situations, I have come to really wish I'd known about sensory issues sooner in life.

Since learning to actually correlate certain "weird" or "bad" sensations with things like noise or crowds or certain kinds of lighting, I've learned to do things like make sure I have headphones/earplugs available, try to visit stores at less crowded times of day, and if I must visit a store that makes my brain feel like it's been shoved into a glitter-filled kaliedoscope and shaken (Whole Foods, I am looking at you!), not to go alone.

So, anyway, if you haven't already, you may want to try things like ear plugs or noise cancelling earphones in stores, or sunglasses (if the lighting bothers you), etc. Additionally if you are going to be running errands in places that are going to be overloading regardless, make sure you wear comfortable clothing so that the sensation of a stiff, unpleasant fabric rubbing against you isn't adding to the overall load you have to process.

And also realize that even if you may be able to communicate in a certain way in certain environments, all bets may be off in a store environment, especially if things are busy. Hence, you may want to think about bringing a pad and paper (or even small computer) with you so that you can write things down to show clerks, etc.

What Food to Get

This is definitely another area that is going to vary according to the individual, and I am not even going to attempt to provide a list of specific things everyone should eat on a regular basis. That would be ridiculous considering the different tastes, allergies, and other factors that vary widely between people and affect what each of us can eat at any given time.

However, there are a few very general things that I think can be said pertaining to nutrition, food storage, shelf life, and preparation issues that I figure are worth mentioning here. I've learned these things through a combination of reading (my interest in longevity/biogerontology has compelled me to read about dietary factors a fair bit) and experience so take them for what they're worth.

BIG HUGE DISCLAIMER: I am not a doctor or a dietician, nor do I know your particular individual situation and its constraints, nor am I ignorant of the fact that some people have very little choice indeed in what they have access to in terms of food. However this writing cannot possibly encompass or solve all the problems with the world's food supply, etc., so all this is intended to do is share some

- Not all "convenience food" is evil!

While "convenience food" in general can be more expensive than buying separate ingredients and combining them yourself, if you can afford it at all, it is often (at the very least) cheaper than going to a restaurant. Moreover, if you can't or don't cook consistently, this kind of thing can literally be a lifesaver.

And there are actually some surprisingly good (and not-too-bad-for-you) options appearing these days -- Trader Joe's has a number of frozen veggie burritos that aren't bad, in addition to various other products in the freezer section, along with some "shelf stable" meal packets that are actually surprisingly good.

- Unless you are a hummingbird, avoid (non-dessert) products where the first or second ingredient is some form of sugar

If your aim is to obtain a food product that is not dessert, and that you want to be able to (for instance) have for breakfast and get sustained energy from throughout the morning (as opposed to a "crash" halfway to lunchtime -- from experience I can definitely say that molasses gingerbread cake is a terrible breakfast choice), you probably want to avoid the toaster pastries, the "granola bars" speckled with colorful M&Ms, and so on.

The problem with these sorts of things is not that they exist at all (without them I am guessing some people might literally starve to death, and I understand that some people have economic and availability constraints that unfortunately mean a "junk subsistence" diet, which is a whole problem unto itself way beyond the scope of this writing), but that they sort of masquerade as being "meals" or "meal replacements" when they are really no more nutritionally loaded than your average candy bar, and potentially less so in some cases.

And when it comes to beverages, most bottled or packaged drinks (at least in the locales I'm familiar with) contain wicked amounts of sugar these days, so don't be seduced by labels proclaiming "fortified with antioxidants!" -- you could still very well be getting something nutritionally equivalent to the powdered fruit punch you drank as a youngster regardless of whatever "grownup" and "healthy-sounding" terms are on the label.

You want to read the actual ingredients list whenever possible, not just the marketing claims, and if you see "sugar", "dextrose", "high fructose corn syrup", "evaporated cane juice", "brown rice syrup", "crystallized fructose", "glucose syrup", or any number of similar terms listed first or second, try looking for an alternative, unless your goal is actually to find a dessert item.

- Trail mix (may be) your friend

Okay, of course if you are allergic to all nuts, dried fruits, grains, and anything else that might conceivably be considered a trail mix ingredient, or if you simply don't like any of that stuff, then trail mix is probably your enemy and not your friend. I realize this item is going to exclude a number of people, and I apologize for that.

But for those of us that can eat mixed-together dried foods of various sorts, the ever-versatile option of trail mix (which I am using here generically as a term to mean, essentially, "dried bits of food mixed together") can be an awesome and convenient way to keep ourselves alive and fed. Seriously, I've lived on trail mix for various periods of my life.

Its advantages for people that might have difficulty with food preparation, shopping, etc., are very similar to the advantages it has for people who are hiking or camping -- which is to say, it is fairly shelf-stable (will survive a lot longer without refrigeration than most "wet" foods), it is portable (can be put in containers of any size and carried without fear of icky leakage, etc.), and can have a very high nutrient density.

(And it can be a good alternative for people who like granola bars but who are having trouble finding anything of that nature that isn't a dessert bar in disguise -- you often have a lot of the same "substrates" in trail mix as in granola bars, but without the sticky, sugary stuff they use to bind it together into the "bar" shape.)

Furthermore, there's also the fact that in addition to the numerous pre-fab mixes available you can make your own mixes based on what you (a) like, and (b) have available, and you (or someone who helps you with meal-related tasks) can make a ton of mix at once and then store it for quite a while in whatever size(s) of containers you want.

You can also make different mixes for different moods and days, and mixes that indulge whatever your individual food-quirks happen to be -- e.g., if you're like me and have a bit of a wasabi obsession, you can put a bunch of nuts and dried vegetables into a bag and shake with some wasabi powder, and have yourself a nice package of supremely spicy tastiness that you can take along with you wherever you go, whether that be the library or your living room or anything in between.

- Know your body and tailor your diet accordingly.

If you have any food allergies, etc., make sure you check labels, and read the whole label. I was eating some rather tasty cereal for a while a few months back, and couldn't figure out for a week why I kept breaking out in itchy hives every day mid-morning. It turned out the cereal contained peach extract, and I am allergic to peaches. I'd missed this the first time reading the label because I'd only checked the first few ingredients to make sure it wasn't ultra high in sugar -- it wasn't, but that didn't mean it was okay for me to eat!

Bear in mind as well that depending on age, gender, overall health, medical conditions, etc., different people may need different amounts and types of food and nutrients. As a small-boned mostly-vegetarian white female I know I need to make sure and get enough iron, B12, calcium, and protein, and that I may need to make extra effort to include enough of these things in my diet. I am not always good at this and my partner often ends up reminding me about protein especially, but I at least try to be aware of factors that could mean I need more or less of something.

And, of course, beware unscrupulous and random advice! Yes, this includes this very article, as I am not a nutritional professional and don't claim to be. If you read something that sounds good and logical, check your facts before doing it, and certainly be very leery of any claims that a particular "technique" or diet applies to everyone!

Any Good Gudelines for Autistic Spectrum Adults in the Workplace?

2009-07-08T23:09:00.000-07:00

Okay, without getting overmuch into detail here (for reasons that any employed blogger should be familiar with), I have become quite curious as of late about actually useful guides (in the form of books, pamphlets, web sites, etc.) that one might be able to show to one's employers regarding autism and workplace communication and other issues.

I have not been able to find anything like this. And I've looked. Most of the literature I've come across is just, well, horrible and likely to cause more problems than it solves.

I do not think any of us on the autistic spectrum need our bosses reading all kinds of stuff about how we need "mentors" to be assigned to us (my last experience with someone trying to "mentor" me ended with them trying to induct me into a cult, so...yeah, not too interested in setting myself up in that kind of relationship these days), among other things.

I am actually thinking of trying to write something, but who knows if that will actually happen -- a lot of this stuff is just really difficult to explain.

But I think something needs to be there because some of the stuff I've seen and experienced is just ridiculous.

One of the things I and probably a lot of other spectrum adults have dealt with (in a variety of contexts) is the problem of either having it assumed we have abilities we don't, or that we don't have abilities that we do, and hence getting all the wrong kinds of "help" offered! I cannot even count the number of times in my life that, upon it becoming obvious that I have difficulty in something, people have reacted as if I either need everything done "for" me, or as if I am "refusing" to do that thing, etc.

In particular (again without getting into too many details) I think it needs to be a lot more understood that when someone has a lot of difficulty in one area, that does not mean that they are incapable of doing anything at all, or that asking for a logical accommodation is some weird coded way of asking for fewer responsibilities or "easier" work.

I don't want "easier" work, I want a way of doing my work that actually makes sense and can be done in a logical order. And I want some way to explain that what might be a "trivial" interruption for someone else is not trivial for me, and that while I can get a lot done when I have the opportunity to focus, it is not going to "train my brain to multi-task" by progressively requiring more and more activity transitions on a day to day basis. And so on. But so far this is not something I have been very successful at, so I would appreciate any tips.

On The Discovery of The Eyeball Conspiracy

2009-07-05T23:21:00.000-07:00

So, it's been nearly two years since I had my eyes checked last. Like about 70 million other Americans, I'm moderately myopic (with a slight astigmatism) and have worn corrective lenses since I was eight years old.

This is not something I consider a big deal...while I severely disliked my glasses as a kid (see below), that may well have been because I had some degree of taste, and objected to my mother's conviction that all little girls needed to wear glasses that were both GIGANTIC and PINK.

Nowadays, I have nifty black rectangular-ish frames that I love:

...and I can see quite well with them. And unlike contact lenses (which I wore for a while between the ages of 16 and 23), wearing them does not require sticking my fingers IN my eyes, and they're a fair sight more difficult to lose on the bathroom floor, which is always a bonus.

Anyway, while I am a very visually-oriented person and am relieved that my lens prescription hasn't changed very much over the past ten years or so, I can't say I've ever really seen my need for corrective lenses as a tragedy. Moreover, it has never really even occurred to me to obsess over why I might be nearsighted...heck, a fair percentage of people in my family are as well, so it's not like this was unprecedented. Overall, the whole thing rates in my mind as Not A Big Deal.

So, you can imagine my surprise at coming across MYOPIA.ORG this evening. I'd been searching for data on how much people's prescriptions tended to change on average at around my age (30), and I have to admit I've not even gone forward with that search since finding this bizarre site, just because I can't figure out whether to be amused or kind of horrified by it yet.

Essentially, this page reads like...well, I have to admit I wondered upon encountering it whether it might be a parody of one of those autism-related conspiracy-theory sites (in which everything from The Government to Cell Towers to Aborted Chicken Fetus Residue to French fries is implicated in autism causation, with an emphasis on What They Don't Want You To Know(TM)). Case in point:

There are many frauds in the world, engineered by greedy, unscrupulous people. Getting shoddy goods, or losing one's money entirely is common. But what about a situation where you lose your money and your most precious gift, your vision, at the same time? And what if this is happening to defenseless children in every country of the world?

Over one third of our children, although born with normal vision, become nearsighted during their school years. Many have vision that has deteriorated to the point where they would be declared legally blind if they did not have the crutch of glasses to turn to. In some highly literate Asian countries, the incidence of acquired myopia has been increasing in recent years to the point where over 90% of college students are nearsighted! The eye doctors claim this is hereditary, even when there is no history of the problem in the family. But, of all our senses, why is it just our vision that so rapidly deteriorates at such an early age? What if one third of our children walked around with hearing aids or crutches? Would that be considered just "inherited"? The excessive amount of reading and other close work that we do in our modern society is the REAL cause of acquired myopia. And the glasses with minus power lenses that are normally prescribed by uncaring doctors make the vision get worse FAST!

Are you concerned about what your children view on the Internet? You should be more concerned about HOW they are viewing it. If they are wearing the glasses normally prescribed for myopia, their vision will deteriorate. If you ignore the information on this site and fail to educate yourself, you are a partner with your eye doctor in creating a visually handicapped child. The expense and nuisance of wearing glasses for a lifetime is the least of the problem. The more myopia you have, the more you are at risk for sight-destroying diseases such as retinal detachment, macular degeneration, glaucoma and cataract!

During the last century, over 160 million human beings were slaughtered in warfare by other human beings. Compassion toward others is hardly a predominant human trait. This same lack of concern for others is also widespread in the business world. We all know how the tobacco industry does everything in its power to make our children into tobacco addicts so that they will become lifelong customers. The misery and death caused by this are of no concern. In a similar way, the eye "care" industry intentionally ignores prevention and makes our children into visual cripples so they will become lifelong customers. That the progression of myopia leads to eye disease and blindness is of no concern to these people. It's all about the money. This is The Biggest Consumer Fraud In History.

Wellllll...I am not even sure where to start here. Seriously, I had no idea this kind of bizarritude existed surrounding myopia of all things. But it gets better...from the same site, I give you, The Anti-Pinhole Conspiracy!

...pinhole glasses are a perfectly harmless device, even if exaggerated claims were being made. Exaggerated claims seem to be the rule in the marketing world. What would create such a massive coordinated attack against a small company selling such a harmless product? Do you smell the presence of the eye doctors and optical companies in the background as we do? Proof is difficult to find, but what other explanation is there? We are certain that if there was a way to make squinting illegal, they would try to do it. Isn't it strange that pinholes are not offered for sale in retail stores, where they could be made available without making any claims at all for them, just like off-the-rack reading glasses? The reason is that any attempt to mass distribute them has been deliberately and massively squashed.

OK. Here we get to the primary agenda of the myopia.org site: the pushing of "pinhole glasses", which are basically what they sound like: eye coverings dotted with many tiny pinholes. I've actually tried glasses like this (and even attempted making my own as a youngster after reading about the effect in a book), and yes, they do "work" in a sense. Impressively so, actually, at least as far as permitting some degree of clear distance-vision without the familiar curved transparent lenses as one finds in standard glasses. You can try it yourself if you want -- just get a piece of stiff paperboard and a pin, poke a bunch of holes in it, and look through. If you are nearsighted, you should see at least some distant objects far more clearly than you do without the pinhole surface.

Fine, I am not disputing that. But pinhole glasses also have limitations -- for one thing, they can reduce brightness significantly, and for another, they can interfere a lot with one's peripheral vision. When I tried my looking-through-holes experiment I found the effect interesting to be sure, but annoying as well, and in general far more limiting to my vision than conventional glasses. Would I try them again? Sure, perhaps, if I wanted a pair of eclectic sunglasses, or perhaps as a spare if I were going camping, but not likely otherwise.

Moreover, the myopia.org site seems to be pushing the rather silly notion that somehow myopia isn't genetic in origin, but (as the quote above indicates) the result of a conspiracy perpetuated by the "eye doctors and optical industry" who have banded together to suppress the "curative" or "preventative" pinhole lenses so they can continue filling their pockets with the money of those of us who have had our vision "destroyed" by all those years of reading and wearing regular glasses (the horror!).

Overall, I would definitely hold up myopia.org as a great example of what pseudoscientific nonsense looks like. While it does actually refer to a phenomenon (the fact that pinhole lenses can make stuff look clearer if you're myopic) that is certainly real enough, it goes into this big load of "Oh Look How We Are So Oppressed Even Though We Are Geniuses Who Know Better Than Actual Scientists!" drama-rama quite seamlessly. Then you've got the conspiracy-mongering. You've got the blaming (see intro paragraph quoted above) in which parents are called "...a partner with [their] eye doctor in creating a visually handicapped child" if they dare to "ignore" the information on their site. And then you have the invocation of the "glasses are ugly" ableist stereotype as a scare tactic:

But, when children have been adequately informed of what is at stake, will they really choose instead the inconvenience of a lifelong dependence on glasses to see and the increased probability of eye disease? Point out a few people with thick glasses and ask your child if it isn't worth a little effort to avoid needing such glasses to see.

Ew ew ew. This thing is a treasure trove, I tell you -- a treasure trove of ridiculousness!

And on that note, I am going to bed, so long as my "devastating" nearsightedness doesn't result in...exploding eyeballs or something on the way there!

References:

- myopia.org
- Quackwatch on Eye-Related Quackery

Seeking Writer's App for iPod Touch

2009-06-30T19:46:00.000-07:00

Recently I acquired an iPod Touch. I've had a portable dedicated MP3/music player for several years now (an indispensible item when one works in Cubicle Country) and initially couldn't see how the Touch differed from something like that, but after playing a bit with one back in May, I found myself tremendously intrigued.

To make a long story short, I have one now (a second-generation 8 GB model) and I love it. Love love love. I find iTunes to be somewhat obnoxious and I am definitely not one of those who valorizes Apple or thinks they can do no wrong (I've never even owned an Apple desktop or laptop computer; just iPods), but the Touch is definitely a big win for me.

Anyway, though, I've downloaded a number of applications at this point, from the practical to the musically adorable to the inane but strangely compelling.

But there's one thing in particular that I think would be perfect for this platform that I've not as of yet been able to find. I don't know whether it exists and I am just not finding it, or whether maybe nobody has developed anything like it yet -- in any case I figured I might as well send this query out into the Web-aether and see what came back.

What I am looking for is a sort of "writer's assistant" program geared toward people attempting to write fiction (as I have been for...well, a long time). Its main focus would be character development, and given that I carry the iTouch pretty much everywhere with me these days, it would be wonderful to be able to use it in the manner I have in mind.

Now, of course I know that there are many ways in which a person might utilize regular computers, simple notepad applications, or even a plain old paper-and-pen setup to hash out their writing ideas. Moreover, there may well be something like this for some other hand-held computing device (I haven't looked). So it's not like this kind of thing would be a "necessity" app -- it would be more like a convenience, and hopefully for people like me, something that might encourage and enable us to work on character development for our stories on the bus, in waiting rooms, etc.

Somewhat amusingly (or perhaps frighteningly?), the closest thing I've been able to find in the App Store to what I'm looking for is something called Little Black Book, which is, as near as I can tell, a kind of interactive journal geared toward the kind of men who might actually take the Seduce and Destroy infomercial from the film 'Magnolia' seriously. You use it to track and store information on your "romantic conquests", I guess, and (because of course you probably don't want your mom finding this stuff) its data isn't connected to the iPhone's inbuilt contact list.

And...I actually might have been willing to try that app for this character-development thing I have in mind, if not for the fact that the "instant phone-number dial" stuff was so prominent and that it didn't look like it had a flexible enough interface to actually put in all the info I'd want for a character. Obviously my fictional characters aren't going to have phone numbers so it would be an annoying distraction to have the phone number field sitting there all the time, but not other fields that actually might be useful.

So in summary, the Writer's App I Am Seeking would have the following features:

1. Ideally it would permit the user to create entries for each of the characters in a given story which might include a picture (either from an included avatar-maker or from a photo or drawing you import) of how they imagine the character to look.

2. Fields for the character's name and various "stats", such as age, interests, personality traits, etc.

3. A built-in "notepad" page associated with each character where you could practice writing things in the character's "voice" (something I have a terrible time with -- right now every character I attempt to make seems to sound exactly like me, which isn't really a good premise for an interesting story...).

4. An indexing system that consists of a page where different stories you might be working on are listed, and then sub-sections within each story where you can add multiple characters (possibly sorted according to categories like "protagonist", "villain", "supporting character", "sidekick", etc.).

5. Like the "Little Black Book", this app would not import from or export to the device's main contact list. (There are a number of "address book" apps available, but the majority of them seem to be designed to automatically interface with your main contact list, and hence I rejected those I came across as I don't want imaginary people inter-mingling with real people in that way...would be too confusing).

So...if anyone happens to know of anything like what I'm looking for here, please feel free to comment or email if you do have suggestions. Mind you, I am only looking for iPhone/iTouch applications (not interested in either paying for or learning to use any other PDA-like devices at the moment), and not ones you need to "jailbreak" your device in order to get.

Also, if there really and truly is not anything right now that exists like what I am looking for, I would be curious about knowing whether there might be some way to get in touch with an app developer. I don't know any personally (that I know of), and I don't have a Mac to develop on myself (you seem to need one for developing iPhone/iTouch apps), so again, throwing this out into the Internet in case someone might have some input!

(And, for the record, even in the absence of this app I have made some headway on what I hope will be Anne's First Science Fiction Novel -- it's probably going to be a YA book, and it will involve brain implants, scary schoolmasters, antiques, hidden doors, and industrial espionage. I've actually got the plot structure down pretty well, I just really need to do something about these characters and making them individuals...)

On The Feeding of Quirky Mammals, Part 3

2009-06-29T23:29:00.000-07:00

So, say you've managed to figure out that a certain "weird" sensation in your head most likely means you are either hungry, thirsty, or both -- or that (on the less optimistic side of things) you've once again found yourself practically falling over at your desk because somehow nine or more hours have managed to pass since that energy bar you had for breakfast.

At this point, figuring out why whatever unpleasant thing is happening to you is happening is only one part of the equation -- the other is determining how to do something about it.

Three major components may come into play at this point:

- Even if you know you are hungry / thirsty, you may not have the "brain bandwidth" or cognitive energy (or whatever you want to call it) at that point to initiate anything beyond a short, simple set of steps, if that.

- Even if you know you are hungry / thirsty, you may not be able to readily task-switch from whatever else you happen to be doing at the time you realize this.

- Even if you know you are hungry / thirsty, you might be missing some cue or environmental prompt that you generally need in order to actually prepare and/or eat food.

Needless to say, all of these components can factor into one's nutritional-intake challenges, though people will certainly vary in how intensely they experience any one of them, or in whether they ever experience just one or all three or different ones at different times, and so on. But they all essentially deal with the situation described above: that is, the "OK, I'm hungry, now how the heck do I get to food?"

Now, everyone alive probably experiences transition issues to some extent.

But I am mainly gearing this piece toward people who can relate to things like, say

...having a refrigerator full of food but ending up skipping dinner because you are in the living room and the fridge isn't where you can see it,

...or going "WTF, brain?" upon realizing you've managed to read half a book and build up a Lego kit but somehow can't figure out how to make yourself a sandwich, even though you've made sandwiches before and know intellectually what steps are involved.

...or repeatedly going "I'll eat right after I finish [thing]", even when [thing] ends up stretching over a period of many hours, as you know that you risk losing a ton of work and not being able to jump back into the task readily if you take a break.

If you've never experienced anything like this then you might have trouble imagining how anyone could (without it being something as simple as a "willpower issue"). But if you have experienced it you will likely know exactly what I mean when I say that transition issues are not really related to willpower (and can actually be exacerbated by trying to "push" too hard in a particular direction), and that they can exist even when someone is totally intellectually aware of the importance of proper nutrition, and highly motivated to live in a healthy manner.

In other words, I am writing this from the standpoint of someone who has been in the position of having figured out I'm hungry, knowing full well I should eat, knowing that I need a certain amount of water and nutrients to survive and function optimally, and having tremendous motivation -- and yet still not eating well. Clearly if a person is in that situation, the issue is not going to be addressed by reading a book on willpower or studying up on vitamin ratios! But what will it be addressed by?

Well, personally (meaning the usual "this applies to me but may not to you" disclaimer applies) identifying transitions and inertia (in the cognitive sense as opposed to the physics sense) as factors impacting multiple areas of my life has been tremendously helpful in giving me a starting point for dealing at least partly with problems that seemed frustratingly recurrent prior to this realization.

I.e., I've learned that when I am able to minimize the number of transitions I experience during a given time period, I am:

- More effective at doing any individual task
- Better able to make sense of my environment (e.g., less likely to experience cognitive/sensory overload)
- Better able to gauge my actual ability at doing certain things (as I am not burning up all my energy dealing with transitions)
- Better at dealing with unexpected transitions

And so on.

In terms of specific eating-related advice, again I cannot emphasize enough that this will not apply to everyone, but I've found the following useful to keep in mind:

- Prepare meals in advance (and in quantity) when possible

Now this could be you preparing the meals if you have the ability to do so, or it could be someone else (i.e., a carer, personal attendant, or parent), but in any case, if preparation is not something you can do yourself or get help doing on an everyday basis, it can be extremely helpful to (for instance) have all your lunches for the coming week packed and sitting in the fridge by Sunday afternoon.

Quite recently, for a variety of reasons (in particular more transitions than usual...), my own lunch regimen went pretty horribly downhill -- a few weeks ago it had gotten to the point where I was scarcely packing anything at all in the morning and consequently ending up going the whole work day on perhaps a granola bar or two. Yipe! When I realized that was going on, I took it as yet another reminder that it is beyond silly for me to just assume "oh I'll make myself a lunch" every evening the way I was doing.

It is one thing to have intentions, it is quite another to actually be able to follow through with them, and for me, having to deal with choosing, preparing, and packing a lunch every single morning or evening is way too many transitions. So, as of about three weeks ago at the time of my writing this, I've been packing my weekday lunches into small re-usable containers as shown:

...and this is working quite splendidly. Essentially I've eaten the same lunch (raw mixed vegetables, hummus dip, multi-grain pita chips, and an apple) every day for the past three weeks, but as I don't tend to tire of things I like easily, this has been no problem. And I've gotten in a decent amount of midday nutrients since I started doing this again. Eventually I will probably want to rotate in some other victuals, but regardless I will definitely try to keep to the "prepare lunches all at once on the weekend and put them in the fridge" routine.

Anyway, if you are going to try this, you will need to acquire some containers (I use the re-usable plastic ones as shown, but have been considering getting a few bento boxes) for putting the actual foodstuffs in, an insulated lunch bag of some sort if you plan to be taking your lunches anywhere, and of course, food!

Again of course the foods you eat will have to take into consideration what you can tolerate (taste-wise, texture-wise, in light of any food allergies or medical conditions, etc.), so I would not be able to give a definitive list of specific items here, but I can suggest that you acquire things that are going to keep for at least a week in the refrigerator. E.g., fresh raw hardy vegetables like broccoli and carrots, soup, rice with a separate sauce, or anything else you can eat that isn't super perishable or likely to be unappetizing by the fourth or fifth day.

If you don't have regular access to a refrigerator you can look up dehydrated or other highly sturdy items but I don't have a lot of experience in that department aside from the fact that I have actually manage to survive some of the toughest food intervals in my life practically on trail mix alone!

- Keep (healthy, conveniently packaged) food and liquid within reach

If you find that you tend to hang out in one area a lot (e.g., your desk or a particular room), and that one of your main challenges to eating regularly is that this room does not happen to be the kitchen or pantry, then it would logically follow that it makes sense to put food closer to where you usually are.

Not all your food, mind you, but enough (and enough that isn't nutritionally void -- you cannot in fact thrive on Sweet Tarts and Mountain Dew for very long, LAN parties notwithstanding) so that you don't sit there for hours knowing vaguely perhaps that you "should" eat but not having enough sustenance for a gnat in your immediate vicinity. The key is to avoid the vicious circle in which you sort of figure you ought to be eating and then end up not doing so for much, much longer than you might have otherwise because your brain is getting lower and lower on fuel.

E.g., at work I usually keep trail mix or an energy bar within arm's reach of my desk at all times, and at home (though I often need reminders if I am going to be home alone for a bit, which happens infrequently enough such that I don't really have a routine for it), food is usually at least close enough to get rapidly. And I now take a water bottle out with me every day as a matter of habit (though at work I find it's pretty crucial to make sure and take it out of my lunchbox before getting really absorbed in something, lest I forget it exists!).

The diagram below shows a potential "easy-nutritional access layout" (with bonus dish area and wastebasket for clutter-management).

- Watch out for potential nutritional imbalances caused by making a particular thing too available

While most of my own issues have tended toward not eating enough due to task-inertia or brain-stickiness or whatever you want to call it, I've also noted and at times personally experienced the "eat it all because it's there" phenomenon.

Sometimes a particular food (or food-like substance, as certain highly processed items might more properly be called) can be a kind of awesome sensory delight unto itself, leading to your consuming it in quantity even if you aren't very hungry. Other times, it could just be that once you start eating something, you just don't stop until whatever you can see is gone.

Anyway, I have found that in these sorts of situations, I can actually engage in a sort of "intertial hijack" due to being aware that if a package is closed up and in another room, I will likely not deplete its contents rapidly no matter how yummy they are. E.g., I really really really like dark chocolate, and if you put a bag of dark chocolate chips in front of me, I can pretty handily devour the whole thing and not even realize it until my eyeballs start vibrating (from all that caffeine and theobromine!) a while later.

So, knowing this tendency, I now store anything chocolate-chip-like in the kitchen and if I happen to be in there and decide I want some chocolate goodness, I will pour out a small quantity into a bowl, close and seal the bag, and then quickly leave the kitchen, bowl in hand. That way, I get the satisfaction of tasty chocolate but am generally too inertial to go back and get more out of the bag within a given span of time!

- Transition issues and perfectionism can really feed into each other, so it's important to watch this carefully if you tend toward both!

E.g., if you're like this you probably want to avoid using food as an "incentive". You wouldn't tell yourself you needed to finish an assignment before you were allowed to breathe, after all, and food is as essential to animal life as air.

This doesn't mean you want to be eating non-stop or that you should be rushing to the refrigerator whenever the mere idea of food occurs to you -- just that you should never make eating at all contingent on finishing an assignment, writing a paper, etc.

If you tend to be inertial, you are going to have enough of a challenge getting up to eat as it is -- and if you have gotten to the point where the only way you can come close to finishing your work, etc., is by delaying basic biological necessities until you're done with the work, you can probably take that as a warning sign that something is seriously wrong with the way you're scheduled!

- Consider Prompting and Cues

A "cue" in this context might be considered something like: being able to see food or drink, being able to reach food or drink, having someone else in the room, having someone else leave the room, etc. etc. A "prompt" might be someone telling you to eat, a checklist item telling you to eat, etc.

It can be difficult to know what kinds of things cue or prompt you into eating and some people may need assistance in figuring this out, but in any case if you can figure it out it's a good thing to take note of.

E.g., I've determined that I need to be extra-systematic about my eating at work because there's so much about that environment that seems to be not conducive to even remembering food exists (similar for when I'm home alone), but when my partner is around I don't need to be quite so vigilant about either checklists or routines because for some reason even just having him sitting across the room for me makes it more likely for me to recall that I have a tasty snack in the kitchen I could presumably go get.

And I don't entertain visitors often, but whenever someone does come over I find that for some reason a "politeness program" kicks in and I am compelled to offer food to the visitors, meaning I am more likely to actually eat something myself!

In terms of actually using this, mostly it has helped me know when I might need to be more or less vigilant, or what situations might tend to lead to needing more reminders, etc.

- Your Plan (and your life) should be Sustainable!

Now, I am quite interested in sustainability in the sense of using natural and industrial resources wisely and with a view of the long term in mind. However, that isn't the kind of sustainability I am referring to here -- rather, I am referring to the measure of how well one can actually maintain decent eating habits over time.

For me and a lot of others who might be able to relate to the kinds of experiences I've discussed herein, one thing that's taken me ages to learn is that there are some things you just shouldn't compromise on, even if you occasionally can. Eating (and moreover, eating well) is one of those things, and I've definitely found that it's very easy to slip back into bad habits if I try to cram too much (and particularly too many transitions) into my life at once.

For example, that period in college wherein I was supposedly peeing out evidence of musculature in the process of being digested, I had actually managed to completely neglect the notion that food was even a priority. I did not build any time for meals into my own schedule, and hence they became an afterthought at best. And I've done similar things even since graduating and getting a job, and I now consider that I will probably need to "watch" these tendencies in myself indefinitely in order to avoid really serious issues from cropping up.

Frankly it was only actually experiencing various levels of "crashing" and serious unpleasantness that got me to realize that I couldn't sustain the kinds of levels I felt like I "should" be sustaining, based on various cultural expectations I'd absorbed coupled with my own perfectionism.

I actually felt guilty almost constantly for the first few years out of college when I started working because I wasn't going out if my way to try and attend night classes or do other Symbolic Gestures of Career Commitment the way some of my co-workers of similar age were -- but the thing was, I just could not summon the...power or energy or whatever necessary to even begin to set up after-work classes, let alone actually attend them. And it took me a long time to determine that part of the problem with this would be that it would entail way more transitions than I could manage, which would impact everything from sleep to food to cognitive regulation.

Hence, I know first-hand how difficult it can be to challenge the prevailing "only people who work 80 hour weeks are responsible and ambitious" mentality that seems to especially proliferate in certain sectors of the USA. But if at all possible I would recommend that you take stock of your life, your schedule, and the number of transitions...you don't want to have to end up melting down in a manager's office babbling about how you "need to learn to emulate human behavior" or semi-incoherently finding your way back to your desk after nearly falling over in the lab due to a crash in blood sugar.

That kind of thing is preventable, and shouldn't happen very often at all if your life is set up in a sustainable manner -- which for many of us can entail making sure we are not tiring ourselves out so much with transitions that we can't find our way to the refrigerator in the evenings! Remember that there are many, many options for pursuing hobbies, projects, and career development (especially for those of us with Internet access and, heck, library access) and that a lot of the time you might very well be able to find a non-standard path toward even a rather ambitious goal that doesn't mean sacrificing your nutritional consumption or any other aspect of self care.

I prefer to read it as a threat...

2009-06-28T00:01:00.001-07:00

Women are soft and gentle, but they hit things.
Originally uploaded by malcontentdiary

Came across this in a "vintage ads" photo pool, and spent several seconds blinking and sputtering, so figured it was worth a post.

Women are soft and gentle, but they hit things, eh? Wow.

I mean, not that I have a drivers' license myself, but still...

Academic Autistic Spectrum Partnership In Research and Education (AASPIRE) Announces Gateway Project Launch

2009-06-27T10:26:00.000-07:00

A while back I got involved with the nascent AASPIRE Project, which (quoting from the web site):

...brings together the academic community and the autistic community to develop and perform research projects relevant to the needs of autistic adults. Our partnership will adhere to the principles of Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR), whereby researchers and community members serve as equal partners throughout the research process.

Now, of course no research project, online or otherwise, is going to be able to take into account the views of literally everyone in a given demographic. Not all adults on the autistic spectrum even have access to the Internet, and of those that do, not all have either the ability or inclination to use it.

This, however, is true of many populations and the way I see it, so long as any conclusions or hypotheses derived from research keep this in mind, there is still value in gathering the data.

And by making sure to adhere to relevant standards of scientific scrutiny and ethics, which of course includes openness to criticism, peer review, etc., it is my hope that AASPIRE and similar projects may at least have some positive impact on the signal to noise ration in autism research.

The notion that only nonautistic people are qualified to suggest research avenues or comment on study design elements, etc., pertaining to autism research is one in serious need of challenge and actually getting the inputs of at least some persons on the spectrum (and it should go without saying that these persons cannot and do not "speak for" all autistic people) strikes me as a promising avenue for addressing this challenge.

The announcement text appears below in its unmodified form from the AASPIRE administrators (per U.S. IRB requirements)

--- BEGIN ANNOUNCEMENT TEXT ---

Participate in the AASPIRE Gateway Project

You are invited to participate in a continuing online research project called the AASPIRE Gateway Project. This online research project is conducted by the Academic Autistic Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education (AASPIRE, http://aaspireproject.org) in collaboration with Oregon Health & Science University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Portland State University, and the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network.

The AASPIRE Gateway Project is recruiting participants with and without disabilities, and participants on the autism spectrum, for a series of continuing online studies on topics such as health care, Internet use, online sense of community, identity, problem solving, and perspective taking. The goals of the online AASPIRE Gateway Project are

(1) to collect the Gateway Survey data;
(2) to use the Gateway Survey data to invite eligible participants to AASPIRE’s continuing online research studies; and
(3) to use the Gateway Survey data in AASPIRE’s continuing online research studies.

You may participate in the AASPIRE Gateway Project and contribute to continuing AASPIRE research studies if you are at least 18 years old, and you have access to the Internet.

The first step in joining the AASPIRE Gateway Project is completing the online AASPIRE Gateway Survey. The AASPIRE Gateway Survey asks about (a) personal information, such as age, gender, disability, education, and employment status, (b) information about which hand you prefer to use when doing activities such as writing with a pen or pencil, and (c) information about your personal preferences regarding interests, habits, and social interactions. Completing the AASPIRE Gateway Survey will take approximately 20-40 minutes. In return, you may choose to be entered into a drawing for a 1 in 25 chance to win a $25 gift certificate to Amazon.com or to receive 1 extra credit point in your introductory psychology class if you are a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Adults who identify as having a disability and adults who identify as being on the autistic spectrum are especially encouraged to participate in the AASPIRE Gateway Project.

If you're interested in participating in the AASPIRE Gateway Project, or would like to learn more about AASPIRE or the study, here are three ways you can get started:

1) Go to the study’s website at www.aaspire.org/gateway.
2) Send an email to info@aaspireproject.org.
3) Make a telephone call to Christina Nicolaidis, MD, MPH, at (503) 494-9602 or Morton Ann Gernsbacher, PhD, at (608) 262-6989.

OHSU IRB # 3762; UW IRB# SE-2008-0749
Principal Investigators: Christina Nicolaidis, MD, MPH, Oregon Health & Science University
Morton Ann Gernsbacher, PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Katherine McDonald, PhD, Portland State University
Dora Raymaker, Autistic Self-Advocacy Network

--- END ANNOUNCEMENT TEXT ---

And one more comment from me: I would like to make it clear that, to the best of my knowledge, AASPIRE is a research-oriented entity and that participating in the Gateway Project does not in any way, shape, or form constitute an endorsement of any political positions or specific organizations.

I.e., you can be involved in AASPIRE (as I am) and/or participate in research as a member of the world community by taking the Gateway Survey without this implying or signifying that you are a supporter of Oregon Health & Science University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Portland State University, or the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, or the expressed political/policy opinions of these entities.

(I made specific effort to find out and confirm this recently because "affiliational" stuff confuses the living daylights out of me and I am leery of associating in any official capacity with anything lately due to past experiences. Moreover, I think it is very important for autistic people to be able to engage in self-advocacy without this being "branded" as adherence to any organization, as it would most definitely in my estimation undermine autistic civil rights if all of us always had to be compromising our personal principles in areas unacceptable to us or "signing on" with groups whose policies we might not even fully understand, let alone approve of, in order for our perspectives to be taken seriously.)

On The Feeding of Quirky Mammals, Part 2

2009-06-26T22:44:00.000-07:00

2. "Feeling Hungry" (or not) - Body Awareness and Eating

I.

The phrase "body awareness" is used here not in any strict scientific sense or in any flaky New Agey sense, but rather informally as something along the lines of: the capacity or tendency to specifically notice and identify that one is feeling a particular internal sensation.

Hence, body awareness (as I am using this phrase in this context) is going to be relevant to a person's eating habits, as if you don't "feel hungry" very intensely (or if you just have difficulty in general sorting out what you are feeling), your need for nutritive input is not necessarily going to match up with your sense of wanting food.

And if this is the case, you may find yourself missing meals without necessarily even realizing you've done so until you start feeling really horrible (and possibly not even then, at least not without someone else coming along and reminding you about food).

Needless to say, this isn't exactly an ideal situation. But a lot of its power to wreak havoc, as often seems to be the case with this kind of thing, comes from not realizing what is going on. For people with atypical sensory and information processing, our culture often doesn't provide the means or the language for us to readily figure out what might be causing a particular problem -- which means that we can end up going years before encountering information that actually usefully explains what is going on.

E.g., for ages I just went around implicitly presuming that if something was wrong I would "just know", and that there was no need to do anything extra or different than anyone else around me in order to stay healthy and functioning well. Moreover, I have always been severely emetophobic, which as a child often meant that I would refuse food when I probably needed it most, because I couldn't tell the difference between feeling very hungry and feeling sick.

Later, even in college, when I crashed or felt horrible I would either figure it was a sign of laziness or character flaws -- or in some cases jump to some hypochondriacal conclusion, like in when I was worried I had a brain tumor or something because I kept getting headaches and didn't even consider that I was perhaps dehydrated.

This sort of internal conviction (that I should expect to know when I needed to eat or drink based on bodily signals alone) stubbornly maintained itself even through instance after instance of ending up in vastly unpleasant and even injurious situations because I didn't know what I wasn't aware of until it was too late.

I still tend to not be able to immediately identify and articulate sensations like hunger, thirst, etc., but I have been able to avoid many potential crashes since figuring out what signals I do tend to feel strongly. And one particularly strong signal I tend to feel is what I might describe as "sense of routine".

My brain is very good at mapping certain kinds of patterns, in time as well as in space, and hence I've been able to perform a "partial hack" to utilize this capacity in the service of making sure I eat regularly. E.g., I set up the following "rules" for weekdays:

- I will eat breakfast as soon as I get to work (and since my breakfasts usually consist of an energy bar or something similarly user-friendly, I can actually accomplish that during the first morning e-mail check).

- I will eat lunch at 11:15 AM.

If that sounds too simple to even bother mentioning I apologize, but for me it was not a trivial thing at all to come to understand that by taking advantage of my pattern-detection abilities (through first establishing a particular pattern), I could in effect gain access to a signal that was a lot more reliable than hunger.

Since establishing these rules, I've ended up skipping breakfast or lunch far less frequently (dinner has usually been less of a problem as I've never lived alone and have hence had the "cue" of seeing other people eating and smelling food, etc., to remind me about food in the evenings).

When I have skipped meals more recently it has generally been due to a disruption of the routine (such as an early morning meeting or one that starts at 11:15 and goes until after noon), but as time has gone on I've noticed myself starting to feel a sense of "something missing" if I don't eat lunch simply because I know I haven't gone through the activity of taking food out of my lunchbox, etc.

This brainhack doesn't work perfectly and can be thwarted at times by being really absorbed in something so deeply that the routine-signal gets buried, but it works way better than expecting to feel hungry or thirsty in a timely manner ever did. In short, I've made it so eating meals is part of a pattern I expect to exist during the day, and this has made their absence a bit more conspicuous.

II.

Another thing that has helped me is the plain old external reminder. That wonderful invention, the mighty checklist (lately my ~~tricorder~~ iPod Touch has been serving this purpose handily with several of its to-do programs) is a lovely "signal booster" for the routine-orientedness that I've described herein. Knowing that something should be happening is one thing, but having that thing written down tends to make me even more likely to actually do it.

Of course then there is the matter of actually remembering to write stuff down, but since discovering writing a checklist tends to almost instantly settle my brain down when I am beginning to feel overloaded, I've been able to maintain the habit with a reasonable degree of success.

And then there is the truly external reminder of the sort that you may not get to access unless you are lucky enough to have certain kinds of people in your life -- and that is the one which comes from someone who you either live with or know reasonably well who knows you well enough to offer you periodic sustenance-related reminders.

(My partner is excellent at this -- he started doing it initially after noticing how grumpy I was after work some days and thinking to ask me if I'd eaten lunch, and for quite a while now he's been doing things like having me try drinking water or having a snack if I feel nonspecifically "weird" or seem to be acting in an agitated or spacey manner.)

But still, while I am very grateful for this I also know that you can't just go out and "get" help like this. There is a major problem right now with lots of people probably not being able to get even as "simple" a service as the regular food reminder because either they are considered "too high functioning" to qualify for it or because they don't know where to start in the administrative maze.

I wouldn't know where to start there either so I can't really advise in that regard -- but I can say that it probably wouldn't hurt to maybe try asking a roommate, a sibling, or some other person who you have at least some amount of regular contact with to perhaps say "hey, did you eat?" once in a while.

Summary

So, in summary, if you have body awareness issues around eating for whatever reason, if you haven't already you may want to try:

(a) Identifying some signal other than hunger or thirst that you are actually likely to notice more readily

(b) Using self-initiated reminders (checklists, post-it notes, electronic organizers, etc.)

(c) If possible, making sure someone who you have at least semi-regular contact with you knows you might sometimes need reminders about food or drink.

On The Feeding of Quirky Mammals, Part 1

2009-06-23T21:23:00.000-07:00

One of the things that has long been a challenge for me is eating -- that is, eating both properly and regularly.

Between extreme sensitivity to certain textures (which makes me rather picky), inconsistent body awareness (which makes it difficult to tell when I am hungry), difficulty transitioning between activities, and proneness to sensory overload, there are frequently multiple obstacles between me and a good solid meal.

Growing up of course my parents made sure I was fed (though not always without a fight from me...), but when I reached the age when people are expected to manage that sort of thing on their own, it did not even occur to me to make food a priority, and most of the "eating habits" I developed were, in a word, bad.

To give you an idea of what I mean by "bad", at one point in college I was in a biology lab where we were performing chemical analyses of our urine. Gross, I know, but definitely a bit of a wake-up call for me in that the teacher informed me (upon viewing my results) that I appeared to be "digesting muscle" or something along those lines, and asked me whether I had been eating lately.

I thought about this, and with a start I realized I'd only eaten a small packet of peanut butter crackers that day, and probably the previous few days as well. With all my schoolwork, etc., it simply did not cross my mind that I actually needed food (or water, for that matter)...and since I don't tend to physically "feel" things like hunger and thirst until I am hungry or dehydrated enough to feel really awful, I had been essentially "subsisting" on a diet decidedly lacking in nutritional content.

That was perhaps my first "wake-up call" to the fact that maybe food actually mattered, but it still took me several more years to really internalize that, and has taken more still to figure out what to do about it.

And now, seeing as these days I usually manage to obtain sufficient nutrients and maintain adequate hydration, I thought I would write out some of the things I've discovered to be helpful. I'm not perfect at this stuff, but I've gotten a lot better at it over the past few years, and the subject of nutrition ties very closely into interests in both longevity and disability issues, particularly for those of us on the autistic spectrum who often need to acquire adaptive and self-help skills in atypical ways.

Posts will be presented in series format -- this is the first of what will probably be four or five consecutive entries.

1. Food-Related Sensory Issues

I.

For as long as I can recall I've been a "picky eater". Many of my childhood mealtime memories are, shall we say, less than pleasant -- even though I know I was not kept at the table for "hours", it certainly felt that way when I was attempting to choke down a plateful of something literally gag-inducing.

The majority of things I can't stand are what I would call "texture offenders" -- e.g., most meats (especially anything with fat or gristle), macaroni and cheese from a box (a.k.a., "bowl of slimy entrails"), mayonnaise, and creamed corn (which my brain classes in the same category as "dog vomit"). I didn't like these things as a kid and I don't like them now, and pretty much anything with a slimy texture (or that is stretchy or gelatinous or that somehow seems "pre-chewed") goes on my "avoid" list.

Given this, it's no wonder that my worst period of nutritionally-void eating definitely included a component of "hey, nobody is making me eat horrible slimy things, so I can have whatever I want!" That is, on those occasions on which it actually occurred to me to eat something, I would tend to go for things like, oh, pop-tarts, candy corn, cookies, and chocolate bars. On a "good" day this would be intermingled with some trail mix or a cup of sodium-rich instant ramen.

Looking back, it is very easy to see why I ended up "crashing" (in the "sudden fatigue, shakes, and nausea" sense) every so often during college especially -- I was eating too little overall and way too much sugar when I did eat, and consequently giving myself hypoglycemia-like attacks.

Anyway, it has taken me a while, but I have actually discovered since those dark days of dietary disaster that there are lots of real, healthy foods I genuinely like!

E.g., I have a considerable fondness for raw vegetables, which have the added benefit of not even needing any preparation besides perhaps washing. I also like most cooked vegetables (except okra -- too mucusy), salad greens (including the bitter ones), tofu, veggie burgers, mushrooms, nuts, and beans. Frankly at this point I can't even stand a lot of highly processed things anymore -- they are too sweet, too salty, and just plain too boring for them to even be tempting.

Finding "real food" that I not only tolerate but enjoy has mostly been a matter of experimenting. Once I finally internalized the fact that eating wasn't exactly optional, I became a bit more motivated than before to try different sorts of things.

Sometimes this took the form of starting with something I knew I liked and looking for things that had some property in common with it (such as spiciness -- I'd liked hot sauce on all kinds of things since childhood, but didn't discover curry until I was in my twenties, and upon trying it wondered where it had been all my life!).

Other times, it took the form of trying something that I had rejected as a youngster not for any reason related to taste or texture, but just because I'd thought it was "weird" for some reason (e.g., mushrooms, which I was terrified of for a while for no good reason, but now like in a lot of things).

And other times still it took the form of thinking back to something I hadn't really liked and figuring out that the reason I'd not liked it might have been related to preparation or variety rather than to the food itself (and that there was no reason, for instance, I had to even bother cooking a vegetable if I liked it better raw! It took me years to figure out that I didn't have to be at a picnic to have carrot sticks, etc.).

(It has also helped, of course, that my partner Matt (born and raised in California, Land Of Fresh Year-Round Produce) is an utterly amazing cook who spoils me with his culinary creativity...I've had more different kinds of food since moving out to California from Connecticut in 1996 than I knew existed previously.)

In other words, regardless of what your sensory sensitivities happen to be (and many people have them, not just autistic people), the sheer variety of food out there probably has something you can eat and enjoy and that won't pickle your pancreas or accost your arteries.

II.

Of course depending on where you live it is going to be more difficult to get certain things than others.

And some people have food allergies and other conditions to deal with that can make healthy eating even more of a challenge (e.g., people with Crohn's Disease can have trouble digesting vegetable matter, people with mobility impairments may be limited as to what they can prepare, etc.).

Moreover, there are serious disparities in food availability across geographic and income lines, as well as people that literally gag on everything that isn't Cheez-Whiz and goldfish crackers. The last thing I want to do is write anything that gives the impression I think this stuff is easy, much less for everyone, or that I don't recognize the privilege of my own position (e.g., as someone who currently lives in an apartment with a communal lemon tree in bac that produces fruit year-round).

In other words, I am not presuming everyone has access to, or can even eat, a diet high in fresh veggies and such. Mainly I am just trying to point out that there is a lot more food out there than is obvious, and that even picky eaters might find themselves surprised to find that they actually like some healthy things if they experiment a bit with different ingredients, processing variations, stores, sources, etc.

Furthermore, I also want to write this to emphasize the importance of acknowledging sensory sensitivities in looking to improve your (or someone else's) nutritional intake. While yes, some people (especially young children) are "neophobic" eaters who come to like things they initially balked at trying, sensory sensitivities can be persistent and permanent throughout a person's lifetime, and should not be taken to automatically indicate the person is "rebelling" or "attention seeking" by refusing to eat a particular thing.

I have heard of some cases where people have an overly strong gag reflex due to poor tone in swallowing muscles, etc., and certainly if something like this is occurring then the proper medical professionals should be consulted, but sometimes you're dealing with a simple matter of individual variation in sensory tolerance.

And in any case of texture sensitivity or general pickiness, it is important to work toward finding nutritious things a person can tolerate, so that they don't end up gravitating toward seriously unhealthy items due to not knowing anything else is available.

Still Alive...

2009-06-14T21:16:00.000-07:00

Not sure who is reading these days but just wanted to post briefly to say that yes I am still alive and so is this blog. I have just been very busy lately, both with Day Job and with preparation for an upcoming move. Yes, I am going to be moving sometime this summer and while I am looking forward to being somewhere somewhat larger and where I can have cats(!!!), preparation for such a thing is pretty exhausting! My partner Matt and I are finally going to be moving from the 560 sq. foot apartment we've lived in for the past six years into a house about twice that size.

So that ought to be interesting, but it will probably mean sporadic posting for a while!

On Standards

2009-05-29T21:22:00.000-07:00

One reason I am perhaps a bit quieter on this blog lately than I used to be is because frankly I've reassessed my standards.

I like writing about interesting and (what I consider to be) important things, but I have also become very aware that even the most well-meaning and innocent attempts to share one's interests and opinions publicly can end up adding to the "noise" component of the signal-to-noise ratio on any topic.

Obviously I am not going to demand that either I or anyone else first achieves "perfect" knowledge before writing anything about anything.

(The only people I've seen actually demanding that are people who tend to be enthusiastic about various forms of pseudoscience and superstition. Actual scientists (at least if they're doing actual science), and reasonably scientifically literate laypersons, on the other hand, generally seem to understand that opening up one's ideas to criticism is part of the picture when putting said ideas out in public.)

But: nevertheless, the fact that asking for perfect knowledge of anyone who wishes to communicate about anything is ridiculous does not mean that standards don't matter or that it isn't irresponsible to not check one's own standards frequently. The bottom line is that these days, when I want to write about something weighty or (per my own standards) important, and I have the slightest inkling that there might be actual, factual data pertaining to that thing, I at least make an effort to find and understand the primary sources.

Now, I freely acknowledge that I am not always good about listing citations. And I do not think there is no place for "informal" blogging. I am not suggesting that we ought to all be totally stodgy, never silly, and never say anything without reference to a research paper -- that might help improve accuracy in certain topics, but it would also possibly effectively crowd out people who just might have something worthwhile to say despite not having standard or expected credentials, style, etc.

But when it comes to certain topics I guess I've just come to see it as important to avoid letting either enthusiasm or concern wreak havoc on standards.

For example: If someone tells you something you're writing about is "fringe science", don't take that as an insult -- lots of things start out on the fringes, and certainly it doesn't help your case to insist that science lower its standards to admit your pet idea rather than you going off and trying to actually get your idea tested.

(This is a litmus test I always invoke now when coming across a new claim about longevity medicine -- I am a lot more likely to take seriously efforts that are looking to submit their ideas for testing in stringent conditions than "efforts" whose primary energy expenditure seems devoted to going on about how they "have a secret your doctor doesn't want you to know!")

And if someone tells you that your well-intentioned efforts might actually be having the opposite effect to what your intentions claim, you might want to try and see if you can see what they are talking about.

(This is especially important for people (and groups) who have achieved some level of influence, and it can be very weird sometimes for people accustomed to having little to no influence to suddenly find themselves in the position of having it.

I know I was totally baffled and slightly disturbed when several people e-mailed me after seeing my two minute BBC interview on the Visions of the Future special asking me what I thought about the future of human life -- that definitely gave me a sampling of how even having been on television for a tiny speck of time and portrayed in an even remotely positive light makes people more likely to think you have some kind of "expertise" even when you might be making as wild speculations as anyone else could.)

In short, all humans need to be careful of letting confirmation/deconfirmation bias undermine their goals in trying to transmit accurate information, particularly when the subjects they claim to care about (and the public discussion thereof) has the potential to impact so many who may presently have very little power.

So, when I write these days, it is taking me longer (that is, when I am not making obvious personal speculations that make no claims of being super-sciencey or posting photos or robot-themed artwork or metablogging like this). This does not mean my interest has dropped off in anything -- it means I've realized I really do not want to be part of the noise problem, whether the subject be biogerontology or autism research or anything similarly weighty. I know I won't be perfect at this but I am willing to try harder at least.