As a parent, it's always nice when you can find shared interests with your kids. As an autistic parent, it's especially lovely because the primary way I relate to other human beings is via shared interests. I guess that's part of being bad at small talk and other socially-related skills. With Madalyn, my oldest, it has always been music. When I say "always," I'm not exaggerating.

I have had multiple autism-related epiphanies recently. I seem to be suddenly realizing all the habits and quirks I have that are actually a result of the ASD. I think part of why it's taking me so long to fully grasp the effects it has on me is because of that autistic rigid thinking. When I hear or see a symptom described, I tend to have a very narrow perspective on what that symptom looks like - basically, I picture it exactly the way it's described, and if I don't meet that exact description, I think that means ASD doesn't affect me that way.

I started learning Korean in the spring of 2020. It was the pandemic, everything was shut down, and people were taking on all sorts of new and sometimes obscure or rare hobbies. I did have a reason for choosing to not only learn a new language, but one that used an entirely different writing system. A new alphabet to learn...it was like being a toddler and starting entirely from scratch.

I have recently - within the last 4-5 months - taken a big step back from microblogging social media sites; namely Twitter and Threads. Twitter has obviously become a festering cesspool of MAGA activity and I figured if my suggested "for you" page was making me nauseated to read, maybe my association with that app needs to come to a close.