Eye Candy Friday

Literally, candy.

A sure sign of fall, when the Kisses start coming out in autumnal colors. Of course, I had to eat the silver wrapped ones straight away, so they wouldn't mess up the color scheme. 

And the only bit of real fall color we have right now. The tallow trees have started to turn. The sweet gum shouldn't be far behind.  The oak and elm are still green as can be.

OK, I'm sensing a theme here.  Wanna guess what it is?

Yep, red.  All this yarn arrived today, sent by Kristen.  This is Dardo, um, I guess that's it.  That's the only name I see on the label.  Ten hanks, plus all this loose yarn. 

I ought to get a lot of charity scarves outta this. And that's where it'll all go: Scarves From The Heart.  Speaking of, it's not red, but I did get another Fun Fur scarf finished. 

Now I can cast on the new yarn guilt free.

Finally, I'd like to apologize for the pedantic plodding of my posts here these last few months.  I know they've been rather dull, and I don't blame my readership for skulking off into the abyss of lurkdom.  Or for abandoning the blog altogether.  Maybe I'm getting old.  Maybe I'm watching too much TV.  I don't know, but my brain just doesn't seem to be functioning as well.  I never was one of these bloggers who could draw thousands of hits per day.  Heck, I've never been one of these people who had hundreds of friends.  I believe my upbringing may have had a lot to do with that.  Social interaction was not encouraged--at least not for me.

I took one of those internet quizzes a few weeks back.  I know, I know...but this one was interesting.  It measured my score on the autism spectrum.  The normal score for females is 15.  Anything above 32 was considered autistic.  My score was 27.

I've never had a lot of friends, and as a child I was painfully shy.  That may be why I didn't have a lot of friends.  I can remember walking down the halls in high school.  People I'd known since first grade would walk by and say, "Hi, Becky" and I'd panic, not knowing what I should say back.   Even as I got older and overcame this, I still never really was able to connect.  Oh, I try to be nice to everyone I meet.  I don't always succeed, but I do try.

Still, there's always been that something missing.  That emotional chasm between me and everyone else.  As I got older, and learned more about Autism, I noticed that many of the characteristics ascribed to autistic persons also described me.  I began to wonder if all my life, I'd been an undiagnosed autistic.  Hey, it's possible.  My allergies to eggs and oranges went undiagnosed until I was in my 40s, though the symptoms were there throughout my childhood.  Now, I'm not trying to diagnose myself.  I'm not qualified.  But between my own observations, and the quiz score, I am beginning to wonder.  Even if I were, what could they do about it at my age?

I watched a documentary once in which an adult autistic person was interviewed.  She said that if she had the choice, she would choose to be autistic.  She would not trade the clarity of thought that autism brings for anything.  Boy, I would. To be able to connect.  To feel human.  To have friends.  To love, and more importantly, to be loved. Yeah, I'd trade anything for that.  Anything. 

In a heartbeat.

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