I Need

[shanmonster]

I could not get my nose screw back in. Neither could f00dave. And now my nose is all swollen, and the piercing likely half grown over. I'm going to go to a piercing shop today and see what they think. I'm hoping to have a captive bead hoop put in. I sure hope the shop has one in the right size. Even if they can get my nose screw back in, my nose is so swollen that the metal would be embedded everywhere. Gah.

I also need to get new glasses. The anti-glare coating on my lenses has all but peeled off, leaving me with the filthiest looking glasses, no matter how clean I make them. It also makes it very difficult to see or focus properly. Unfortunately, new lenses (not even counting frames) will set me back about $400. Gah redux.

I may not be able to make it to kung fu tonight, as gha5t's car is out for repairs, and the kwoon is too far away to get to any other way. Meh.

Read some links. Make some happy.

Chinese burn Viagra replicas for randy ancestors: Maybe there's a use for spam, after all. Print it out and burn it for your ancestors.

The Girl With a Boy's Brain: A fascinating article with a title that just pisses me off. The only reason they say this woman has a male brain is because she has Asperger's Syndrome--something more commonly diagnosed in males than in females. Saying she has a male brain is like saying a man with breast cancer has a female body. Gah! In any case, the woman in question sounds eerily like me. EERILY. I also don't think she has a mental illness as much as it's just another personality type. Just because you don't fit in with the status quo doesn't mean you have a disorder (thanks, f00dave).

Gov't takes over Alberta hospital over concerns: So fucking gross. "Investigators found some surgical tools were being recirculated even though they still had blood and bits of flesh on them" (thanks, gha5t).

Ladders: Lessons on how NOT to use a ladder.

Shamanic Cheerleaders: For some reason, this makes me think of a squad of peppy young men and women forming a pyramid outside a Buryat healer's hut. But that's not what they do at all.

Horror of neck tumour man: Ok, so this guy discovers a tumour in his neck seventeen years ago. Two years ago, it became enormous and very painful. This year, he finally decided to see a doctor. Pardon me while I stereotype, but what quintessential male behaviour!

Cat-Heads and Dog-Heads: Just a weird little bit of Celtic folklore.

Gorgeous Portrait Photography: Oh, the colours and the personalities....

Surprise!: A horse is a horse, of course....

Comments

[allthingsnoisy.livejournal.com]

I purposely do not use nose screws for that reason. They are too darn difficult to get in, and no one outside of India makes ones that are of a small enough gauge to fit into my piercing. I only wear bones.

In the meantime, a sea or kosher salt and warm water soak is what you need.

I hope that the shop can remedy it!

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

The shop would have made it worse, alas. They wanted to put a 14-gauge hoop in there (they said hoops aren't made any smaller!). And they told me the hole was in the wrong spot (it's exactly where I wanted it).

I've got a hoop most of the way through. I'm hoping f00dave can finish the job for me, because I can't quite get the last bit.

Darned nose screws....

[superbrad.livejournal.com]

Neck Tumor Man looks like a cartoon character. I think I would have gone to the doctor a long time before I started looking like Gumby. :)

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

He does, doesn't he? When I first saw the picture, I thought it was a Hallowe'en costume.

[tdj.livejournal.com]

I keep thinking of the big dude who exploded himself in Big Trouble in Little China.

the creature from down the street

[mymagritte.livejournal.com]

Dang, the neck man looks like some movie monster! Love the links, you find such cool/offbeat stuff.

Good luck with the nose ring

Re: the creature from down the street

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

I troll the net so you won't have to! Heh...

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

Girl-with-AS article: It's alluded to only once in the article, but the reason why the writer gave it that title was that some scientists have tried to define Asperger's as "extreme male brain syndrome" - the idea that males are usually better at systematizing than empathizing, and that females are the opposite. There are of course many exceptions and it seems to be affected by hormonal balances during pregnancy, which is a bit at odds with my belief that autism spectrum disorders are mostly genetic in origin.

Simon Baron Cohen came up with this theory, it's explained a lot better at http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,937913,00.html . You should read it; I found it very helpful.

What I found more hurtful and condescending was this bit:

"Looking around Kiriana's apartment—at her collection of colored Easter eggs and logic games, her Edward Gorey books and whimsical drawings—it occurs to me: She's a successful young woman who still inhabits the magical domain of a child.

Quite often when journalists write about people with autism spectrum disorders they treat the subjects like children. And of course it's children with autism who get most of the coverage; the condition does not go away, but (as stated in this article, as with most articles) as the children grow up they learn "scripts" for appropriate behaviour, and the best mimics go furthest. It doesn't really make for a happier or easier life - you're "passing".

[sockatume.livejournal.com]

The "hyper-male" hypothesis of autism is still very much speculative, of course. A story's just popped into my RSS about a candidate for autism's genetic origins (http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19325965.400&feedId=online-news_rss20). Looks like extensive deletions or duplications in the genome may contribute.

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

I don't view the hyper-male theory as an explanation of its origin, though it has some value in explaining or describing autism's effects. I agree more with the stories about its genetic origins. As tempting as the vaccine theory is for a convenient scapegoat, I don't buy it.

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Calling her a child (a sentiment continued in calling her a girl in the title) is very condescending.

I'll check out the link. Thanks!

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

You're welcome! I hope you find it helpful. The things with ASDs is that they comprise a "spectrum": no one ever has anything like a "typical" diagnosis, though a lot of Asperger's people have that "AHA! So that's why my life has been like wanking with sandpaper!" moment.

[tagryn]

Supposedly buying glasses online works pretty well at substantial savings, but I haven't tested it out yet.

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

I'd be afraid of doing that. I have a very broad face, and most frames don't fit me. Unless I could purchase frames I'd already tried on elsewhere....

[bintblue.livejournal.com]

I looked at the Satanic* Shamanic Cheerleader's site and knew right away they were from my town. Ah San Francisco, so great, but often so predictable.

In the spirit of sharing links: Have you seen this yet?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W1VY4b9IQQ


*whoops!

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've seen that before. Sooooo weird....

[firelie.livejournal.com]

I wish I could meet that woman. She sounds fascinating. A lot of that stuff sounded like a more extreme version of me...though it doesn't sound like a "disorder" to me, it just sounds like a far more different personality than most people have.

[zombienought.livejournal.com]

Wow, Neck-Tumour man should get together with
Potato-Head man, and they would have awesome
babies!

[zombienought.livejournal.com]

Geez, that AS girl sounds a little bit like me,
too...only, a whole lot smarter!