This blog is dedicated to:
My canine angel, Lucy Like-a-Charm.
My baby sister Althea, her wonderful hubby Robin, and her two furry boys Bizcuit & Tiny, and now also Mini-B, the prettiest sweetest little girl.
My loyal friends YS and Rick.
Without you, there would be no adventure, no narrative, no amazing tales to tell.
detox
Well, I did say I am loving the stay home measures and I cannot get enough of solitude and semi-isolation (I live with mum, the helper and the floofs). I meant it to the last tiny iota. Lucy is loving me being home too. So this isn’t a grumble about being bored with nothing to do at home – in fact, I actually do not relate to the word “boredom” at all. There’s always something exciting to do on my own (or with Lucy), though I’m spending most of my time nowadays working and I wish there were more hours in the day for making art, playing piano, writing music etc. (Sigh. I mustn’t complain, some work is better than none, especially since 70% of all work for the year has been cancelled.)
Detox. During this stay-home period, I have decided to give myself some positive attention and self-care, and do some things that I have neglected to do, for my own wellbeing. One of the things is, I am detoxing from the anxiety-laden activity of phone calls. Yes. You read this right. Most Autistic people actually really abhor voice calls, you know, the kind where you jump in fright and your heart begins to pound excessively hard when the phone suddenly rings? Yes. That. Oh wait, you’re not autistic and you don’t have sensory processing difficulties? OK. Then perhaps you’re one of those who do like phone calls? It’s ok to like what you like, but I don’t like it and I am trying to convey this to my friends who do like phone calls. Continue reading
No, not meltdown. Just musing on a tropical theme: it is hot and humid here in Singapore. Staying home since early March has been lovely. Well, mostly anyway. These photos are my way of recording the beauty that I am surrounded with, and being thankful for little things, because no matter how little, they are good things, lovely things and hugely important for the sustenance of life.
I am talking about our canine angels.
The heat makes everyone sluggish. My elderly mum doesn’t like the air-conditioning, so we kiddos one and all usually just stick it out during the hottest part of the day, which is between 12pm and 5pm, of course with all the fans blowing at top speed. These are the photographs I’ve been fiddling with, after dinner, when I have stopped working on the research projects. Lucy barks at me to remind me to go to bed. I brush her teeth and apply paw balm on her paw pads. Then I give her a full body massage, and she will lie in my bed for awhile, before settling into her own. I spend another hour or so just doing whatever I feel like doing, writing and fiddling with photos etc. It’s my way of ‘winding down’. Then Lucy will get up and give me a hard affronted stare at around 11pm if I have not turned off the lights and gone to bed by then. We are creatures of habit. And some habits are worth keeping.
Many disabled people have been speaking out in the midst of the outpouring of personal opinions and complaints etc surrounding the various stay-home or isolation regulations in place around the world because of COVID19.
As a disabled person myself, Autistic and immunocompromised, I empathise with most of the responses from the disabled. Here is one:
Many disabled people live very isolated lives. Not by choice but by ableist design. Continue reading
Together in solitude.
I previously blogged about the travel and commuting travails and choices of the immunocompromised and those with hypersensitivity. The same article about how disease can and does spread is also pertinent to this further elaboration on the same theme. This one is about value systems.
There are many difficult choices that immunocompromised people and those with hypersensitivity face day after day, often for an entire lifetime.
How about the choice of either going to a mass gathering or spending a calm, relaxing time at home with the one entity you love the most in the entire world? Which would you choose? Even without the combination of being immunocompromised and Autistic hyper senses, there is really no competition, is there? But I know that most people do not have anyone they love more than anything else in the world, who is willing and able to be available at all times. Not everyone has a Lucy, and not everyone (in fact very few) loves their pets more than they love human company. So… What do these people do, then, to quell or satiate their yearning for human fellowship? Continue reading
The above is one of a series of three videos I created for the Big Anxiety Festival in Sydney, 2017, a wryly humorous explication of my sensory experiences traveling around Sydney in public buses. But what my videos do not speak about is the seriously perilous danger that I have to contend with when commuting by public transport.
I was reading this article in the morning over breakfast and a deluge of thoughts came rushing in. The article explains how just one cough can spread deadly germs to many, because the germs can linger in the atmosphere even long after the person who coughed has left the scene.
Here is the unraveling of one of the many threads. It is about travel and restrictions, but not the kind you might know. Continue reading
If there was one place I’d miss going to during this entire isolation period, it would be Ichiban Boshi & Sushi, especially the one at Novena Square where people are the most friendly of all their outlets. I like the security of familiar places, I love food but I am not superbly adventurous, if I find a restaurant I like, I am happy to just continue to return to it.
But now they have takeaway and delivery, yay! I’m so chuffed!
Here in Singapore, all dine-in at restaurants, cafes and food centres is banned for a month. We are in semi-lockdown. Everyone who can work from home have been ordered to stay at home. Singaporeans love our food, so quite a few people have disregarded this order, abandoned all good sense (not to mention towing the line where the new regulations are concerned) and made the news today. This is serious stuff, not “play-play”.
Stay home, Singapore, and order in!
My favourite cartoonist is the amazing Australian genius, Michael Leunig. This cartoon by Leunig speaks so much more than I have words for.
Hiding from the rest of the human world is something I’ve wanted to do since the age of 6. It’s not that I was so very clever or precocious, it was just my Autistic sensing that touched, tasted, smelled, felt and resonated with the elemental realm and everything in me wanted to recoil from the devastation that humanity has wrought on everything we’ve ever laid our hands on.
Decades on, and that feeling of retraction has never left me. It is a deeply sorrowful one.
I watched a couple of videos circulating around Facebook earlier this evening, horrified and almost unable to breathe: a beautiful white horse was running along a busy road, not far from where I live. People who captured the video were laughing and giggling, “Oh my gawwwd! Why lie-dat?”, (Singlish speak for “why like that”) which made me feel sick to the core, a low out-of-tune bassoon vibrating underneath my diaphragm, while white searing high-pitched screams pierced my headspace as my heart tried to break out of my rib cage.
And here is the write up on “MustShareNews”. Apart from sloppy writing, it’s another attempt at humour that falls flat in the stinking bog, as far as I am concerned. Oh wow, look, it’s tagged “INSPIRATION” and “HUMOUR” !!!???!!!???!!!??? Continue reading
In 2019, the Asia Pacific Autism Conference (APAC) was held in Singapore. It was also the first time that APAC traveled outside of Australia. Here in Singapore, it was a massive event, with 1,800 delegates and the glitzy Resorts World Singapore as venue. (Yes, Singapore does do glitz pretty well.)
It was a groundbreaking moment for Autism in Singapore: the first time ever in Singapore that actual Autistic persons were included in an Autism event. This may sound ridiculous to others outside of Singapore where autistic representation at autism events has become an established norm. But not in Singapore. Not until APAC19. Then, there was a sudden quantum leap forward. Autistic needs were prioritised, they even shut down all the hand dryers in the toilets, and there was a large team of autistic adult volunteers helping to welcome and provide access to autistic delegates from overseas. There were Singaporean autistic presenters, autistic musicians and artists, and two autistic Plenary Speakers, Damian Milton and myself. No, we did not make Keynote Speaker level, unfortunately, though I tried my very best at committee meetings, I was outvoted (I was the only Singaporean autistic professional in the committees). But it was still a monumental success in terms of Autistic Visibility. There were problems, but which human endeavour has no problems?
One year later, we are in the midst of a frightening pandemic, COVID19. It is Autism April again, a month which many of us dread because of the unbridled misinformation and ableist inspirational circus that proliferates during this “awareness” month. We autistics do not want blue. We do not want you to “light it up blue”, we are not puzzle pieces, and we loathe Autism $peaks. Instead, if you must celebrate, please use red or gold, and Autism Acceptance. Isn’t it time we move beyond mere “awareness” into accepting and embracing Autism, and the wonderful diversity in humanity? We need encouragement all round. Everyone – not just autistic people. It is a dark time for us all.
This video was produced by the Autism Network Singapore to celebrate Autism Awareness month. Written and sung by non-autistics. I hear they consulted autistic people, but I wasn’t one of them. That really doesn’t matter at all. You see, I really don’t care much about not being consulted on a song. Seriously, it’s not very important is it? What really matters to me is seeing how far we have come in our journey towards progressive, enlightened ‘awareness’, and how willingly we are moving towards acceptance, and hopefully embracing Autism as a natural and beautiful part of human diversity. This video makes me happy. It’s Singapore-style rah-rah stuff, but I appreciate it for what it is anyway. For the first time, I’m smiling at Made in Singapore inspirational autism stuff. Perhaps, I, too, have come a long way in my journey.
I like what D.J. Savarese said about Autistic people living in a supportive community, with interdependence as a model, and not the too-oft lauded “independence”. In this article in Psychology Today, D.J. is quoted saying:
Interdependence is my model. Make sure all members of the community feel needed. We all need to feel loved and included—not just nonspeaking kids. Ask yourself why sad selves can’t get free from anxiety. Learning is not hard, but it requires a sense of commitment. It’s not always easy, but we all love being a necessary part of something bigger than ourselves, and when we are, the community—and each of us—is better for it.
I’ve always ‘felt’ words, a kind of sensory connectivity with words, rather than mere abstract meanings, and the word “independence” felt like a desperate flight away from danger and pain. I associate that word inside my Being with the time of my life where I constantly felt an overpowering white searing fear, inner loathing of my shackled feet, together with the screaming desperation for flight. A bird shackled inside a golden cage. For that bird, “independence” was paramount – even if it meant a terrible lonely and frightening escape from the grandeur of a luxurious prison. Continue reading
