Wobin, Bwave Sir Wobin

Coffee

2012-02-18T08:30:00.005Z

I think it's time I 'fessed up: I love coffee. I realised this while chatting with a good friend and fellow coffee lover. It's a love that has grown with my proximity to European coffee culture to be sure. "Three different methods of coffee preparation at home isn't excessive, right?" he asks me when I tell him about the new stovetop maker I bought recently. "No, not at all," I reply quietly calculating that I now have four. I resolve to discard the one I use least and don't particularly like just so that I'm back to the three methods I've agreed isn't an excessive number.

While South Africa has coffee shops it doesn't really have a coffee culture. The shops are places to meet someone, have a drink and a piece of cake whereas European coffee shops are places one goes to for the tea and coffee that incidentally serve cakes and pastries and offer tables where one can make use of the free wifi they provide. The South African shops seem to me to serve more of a social function than the European places sacred to the glorious brown beans at which we may meet and worship in caffeinated ecstasy.

I'll make do with drip filtered coffee but I'm no fan. I tried the French Press method at work for the convenience of it but the flavour is thinner and the texture too watery. The full flavoured taste of espresso is more my thing. The espresso method captures more of the oils from the beans by brewing them under pressure. It's not unheard of for me to have a double espresso in the morning and another in the afternoon and with my recent purchase of the stovetop I haven't bothered to measure the precise amount of my morning coffee since I make a full 6 cup pot and then pour liberally into a mug, leaving some for The Husband to enjoy when he wakes up. I'm lactose intolerant so I never take milk but I do enjoy a bit of white sugar to take the edge off less than perfect coffees. As time goes on I'm being introduces to better coffees with which I can see I'll gradually use less sugar (only a good thing) partly because the coffee is better and partly through my tastes changing as I get older.

How do you take yours?

What? You came back?

2012-02-08T22:54:00.002Z

I didn't think I'd want to revive this blog. I happened to come back and read a few posts, chuckled and thought about returning.

I didn't think you'd come back and read here again since I've left it fallow for a year. Welcome back. Let's hope I have more to say that you'll find interesting.

The End (ish)

2010-11-24T14:39:00.002Z

I've decided to bring this blog to an end. I would prefer to blog anonymously in future, as well as feeling like a very different person from when this blog started. My reasons for blogging have changed so it shall be au revoir to this site.

Adieu mes amis. Perhaps we shall meet again at the new blog, perhaps not. Good luck to you all.

Old Man Ahmedinejad

2010-10-18T13:36:00.004+01:00

I've been watching the news of Iranian Presendent Ahmedinejad's visit to Lebanon with curiosity. He's quite a divisive figure who is quite clearly a basket case who may or may not be cunning too. It's hard not to credit some of his hard line looniness to his fervent religious beliefs and his political roots in the Islamic Revolution. Yet another religious loon making the world worse by his actions (see the previous posts about the Pope[1][2]). Mostly because the man is such a nutter, it's hard to get sensible reporting or commentary on his words and actions so it was quite refreshing to read this article in The Guardian's Comment is Free section about fair reporting.

One sentiment in particular stood out amongst all the babble: Zionists were an enemy to peace. Finally Mahmood and I have something we can agree on, if not precisely from the same motivations or with the same intentions. Hardline Zionists are obsessed with the idea of creating a safe and secure Israel with as much land in it as possible and continue to evoke the politics of conflict to achieve that aim. This is where I think that both Ahmedinejad and the Zionists go wrong. The state of Israel already exists. It is fait acompli. The Zionists are stuck in some recent past of a struggle to create something that already exists and Ahmedinajad is stuck in denial of the present. Neither are helpful positions and neither will help get the Middle East to a stable and peaceful equilibrium.

I must agree with his observation that the Palestinians are oppressed and mistreated in many ways by Israel and I understand the real fear and mistrust by the Israelis of many of their neighbours - the Palestinians in particular. For the region to move beyond the conflict will require change on both sides. On the Israeli side in particular, the demise of Zionism would be very helpful. Perhaps we might call it something like Post-Zionism, where they look beyond the recent past and the near future to an idea of how they want their children to live and how that might include an equitable settlement with their neighbours. That settlement has to include a sensible set of policies regarding land and water rights. I'm not brave or wise enough to say what that should look like but those must be the cornerstones of any future peace.

While I hope dearly for the demise of Zionism and for a practical and moderate approach to the future, I am also deeply pessimistic as to their prospects. Culturally, the Jews are a people who venerate the past, venerate the ways of their forefathers and who hold tenatiously to an exclusive ethnic tradition that fears and suspects outsiders after many centuries of being an oppressed underdog. Much of the religious texts are obsessed with the past with the exception being some few sections concerned with prophecy and in particular, messianic prophecy. Considering that the only religious and cultural expectaction for peace is through devine intervension or miracle, I'm not so hopeful for peace in my lifetime.

It would be pleasantly surprising if the Israeli people were able to move beyond their cultural context, but it would be a surprise.

Understanding Ratzinger

2010-09-23T12:11:00.003+01:00

I think I finally understand Ratzinger. I used to be shocked and perplexed by his apparently dogmatic cruelty but I think I get it now. He's clearly a very smart and ambitious man. I doubt one can get to that high office without some political chops but man oh man, his ambition is staggering. Well done old man!

He's clearly angling for the fast track to sainthood. Being pope isn't enough. This guy wants to go as far up as is humanly possible and I don't think it gets higher than being a saint, clearly a higher rank than mere popehood.

I can just see him now, sitting at his desk as Prefect praying to god for a mission worthy of being his magnum opus. The files coming across his desk through the last 25 years must have gone something like thief, paedo, adulterer, paedo, paedo, paedo... "God! What are you trying to tell me?" Adulterer, paedo, paedo, paedo... "Ah, got it Lord. Help the paedos!" In an organisation as old as the Catholic Church, all the really cool saint roles got taken ages ago. Lovers, soldiers, travellers... all gone centuries ago so there's only the dodgy ones left. Patron saint of kiddie fiddlers couldn't have been his first choice but hey, when you got lemons you make lemonade.

So he insults the Queen of England and the sacraments of her church but manages to wangle a state visit invitation from her. During a severe crisis in the British public finances, he manages to get the UK government to cut 'im a cheque for ￡12 million for a holiday. Despite public evidence of his personal complicity of decades aiding and abetting child rape, he managed to make it into and out of the UK without being arrested even though he was surrounded by police most of the time. Ladies and gentlemen, I think we've got ourselves several miracles here!

Breath-taking in its scope and ambition. Brilliantly executed. I hope he thinks the price of thousands of destroyed souls of raped children is worth it.

Thank you, popeman

2010-09-21T14:37:00.004+01:00

Like many British people, I wasn't happy to hear that the pope's recent visit to the UK was given the status of a State visit with many millions of pounds of tax money spent on him and his entourage. Like many people the world over, I'm annoyed by his retrograde bigotry and appalled by his personal record of decades aiding and abetting child rapists among his clergy. Like many human institutions, the Catholic Church has done some fantastic development work in some of the worlds most difficult and poor communities and many Catholics are gentle, good natured and charitable people. Like those many human institutions it also has its foibles - since power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The Catholic Church hungers and quests openly for absolute power like no other institution I know of.

The conduct of this pope is a shame on Catholics and many Catholics openly criticise or disagree with him [1, 2]. This for me is the real story. I was quite moved by Johann Hari’s piece in The Independent recently, where he proposes that Catholics and their Church are the ones suffering most from having a barking mad lunatic at the top. I stand fully behind Richard Dawkins when he says that Ratzinger is an enemy of humanity. I have tried and I cannot understand how the pope connects his policies with human happiness. There doesn’t appear to be any betterment of the human condition through his actions - all I can make out is a very narrow focus on protecting the power structures and wealth of his institution at the expense of its believers.

Most amusingly, the pope warned Britain of the danger of strong atheism, implying that atheism is a great cause of misery in the world. This man has clearly taken leave of his senses or truly is as detached from reality as many say he is. An aged protector of child rapists giving a speech isn’t going to do much to change the tide, is it? In fact, we atheists have something to thank the pope for. No one has done as much to drive people away from the church to ideologies such as humanism or atheism as he has.

So thank you popeman. Bark away. Continue to confirm to the world that you and your church no longer matter. That you sadly are not a force for good in the world. The sooner we all move on from your criminal depravity, the better we’ll all be for it.

Gods and Monsters

2010-09-20T16:26:00.012+01:00

I am an unrepentant atheist and cynic. I find this to be the only sensible course to follow and I regard the activity of almost all organised religion with some suspicion. Perhaps you’ve just cast your eye up to the description of my blog above and noted again that I am a buddhist so rest assured that I am a indeed a spiritual and moral person. What about the Buddha, you ask? I’m glad you asked… As is well documented, Buddha was a man not a god. A smart man who had the good fortune to be born in the right circumstances and who had the drive and interest to understand durable happiness, the compassion to share what he understood with those who were interested as well as the security of his convictions to say something like:

“Do not believe that something is so because a Buddha told you. You must look for yourself to understand.”

Belief without personal experience is discouraged. Disbelief is not helpful but then neither is belief. Experience and understanding of mind are key elements to durable happiness which is everyone’s goal. My suspicion of organised religion is not limited to the mainstream faiths found in the West. I am just as careful of buddhism since it frequently comes wrapped in Indian, Japanese, Thai or Tibetan culture which may have little bearing on the Buddha's teachings. In some cases you don't just get a dose of Tibetan culture but a greater measure of Tibetan politics as well. Those other things may have interest and merit of their own but it's not helpful to serve them as a bundle. Buddhism with national culture is frequently compared to putting acid in a metal bowl. Both the bowl and the acid are changed by the experience. To my mind, being a buddhist is to be an atheist and a cynic. I don’t do gods and monsters. Beliefs that require gods and monsters rely on selective ignorance, discourage experience and have very mixed results at bringing people peace and happiness. By far the best wisdom someone might possess is that they are responsible for their own actions and for their own happiness. Gods and monsters very often remove responsibility in one way or another for both actions and happiness and usually almost entirely for happiness.

While it's not for me, I don't stand in the way of other people's religious choices. If it occurs naturally in coversation, I'll mention that I'm a buddhist but I won't talk about it in any depth unless specifically invited too. This is the prevailing cultural norm in the UK and another reason I feel at home here. I get quite annoyed being preached at and will try simply remove myself from the situation when possible rather than be confrontational with the preacher although with the recent visit by the pope, his barking madness was near inescapable. Hence my next post...

Strange Language

2010-09-14T09:46:00.006+01:00

Words are strange things. English words in particular are very flexible things in which context is very important. Quite often during a conversation, some sentences can have between 3 and 4 possible meanings and choosing the correct context can be hard. For this reason I tend to prefer written communication since I can read and reread problem sentences until the context of the communication flows logically. It does make my head a very funny place to be sometimes as my mind selects ludicrous contexts as the first choice of context before I conciously rescan and select a better context.

For instance, recently our kitties have been having hairball issues so The Husband bought several things for us to help them including special food. He was reading out the qualities of the special cat food to me and one of the qualities just didn't seem right.

TH: "It's tasty, nutritious, helps pass hair balls as well as having Eau de Controle."

WTF? Feeling a bit bossy today? New special fragrance from Gaultier: Eau de Controle! They'll smell the power radiating from your skin...

"Odour control" apparently.

Everyone has these context problems from time to time and it's fun to share the joke when it happens. It's very taxing for me to process and reprocess speech every 4 sentences when the context is particularly malleable (that's the frequency of malleable context that I find in English). Being around people talking becomes very tiring, despite my enjoyment of being around people and enjoying talking to them. It also explains why my dad and I enjoy strange word games like a full 2 minutes of puns, non-stop. Grates the rest of the family terribly since for those 2 minutes, they get to experience language the was dad and I do. They get angry and tired quickly. As aspies, dad and I have found a way to cope with our strange language facility and we understand that to be socially accepted, we must hide our anger, irritation, confusion and exhaustion so we cope for the most part. Coping includes needing to withdraw to recharge after a certain amount of time.

Oh yes, we're quite certain dad's and aspie too.

The Best Sex Advice

2010-09-07T11:25:00.007+01:00

Many years ago I asked a gay female friend how they entertained each other at night. I might have misjudged the closeness of our friendship or perhaps it was the wrong setting... people in earshot or something like that... since she looked a bit uncomfortable as she formed her answer. Yet her answer turned into the very best sex advice I have ever heard. I'm sure she didn't intend for it to be advice per se, yet it's formulation fits the character of advice quite neatly. It has taken me 15 years to understand it fully and I am deeply grateful now for her considered answer.

Strangely enough, she framed her answer as a gay woman might answer a straight man but one may easily brush aside the gender specifics to reveal the nugget of wisdom. "The best way to make love to a woman is with your mind, not with what is between your legs."

Isn't that truly wonderful? I've seen and heard similar wisdom over the years since, usually mentioning the brain as the biggest sex organ though I prefer the gentler associations of love and the mind to the fleshy concerns of a brain and a sex organ. As a recent Gay Banker post mentions, simple attraction and physical pleasure can still sometimes be unsatisfying. When the mind and body are engaged is when truly special encounters happen. Pleasing both ones partner's mind and body requires engaging ones own mind most of all.

Blond Surfer Boy

2010-08-23T13:40:00.007+01:00

The Husband happened upon a sweet young thing the other day with Grindr being the weapon of choice. As is usually the story with Grindr, he lived just up the road, quite horny, chatting on and off over some time. Since the boy showed some promise TH asked if I might be interested in a threesome. The pictures were clearly taken on a phone camera in mediocre light but the boy looked nice. I agreed but wasn't particularly focused on arranging a hookup and so left TH to make the necessary arrangements.

Come Saturday a dinner with the boy at ours was set so I cycled my way over to our local market during the afternoon to buy something nice for the meal. I didn't have any particular theme in mind but was happy to formulate something based on what was available. I found some great Spanish accompaniments to chicken breasts from the butcher - padron peppers to start, Jamon Iberico over sparingly used smoked anchovy on the chicken with vegtables. We polished off a nice bottle of Vouvray white while chatting and eating. Tarta de Santiago almond cake with berries for dessert - or should I say first dessert. :-> He talked about his postgrad studies as an interesting mix of sport science for dancers which sounds like a great job. Apparently one can get paid work putting your hands over professional dancers in skimpy outfits. Chalk that up for consideration should I ever consider a new career.

In person the boy was far nicer looking than his pictures hinted at. Did I mention that he worked previously as a personal trainer at a gym? Used to surf regularly when he lived at the coast with his parents? No? It does sound a bit like porn fantasy to be honest, still, here he was with us, chatting, eating, drinking, flirting and laughing with us. Sadly he cut his longer hair to improve promotion prospects where he works currently - a total shame since I love playing with hair and it looks like his golden locks might be nice to hold, touch and caress. Given how women's hair adverts on tele go on about "touchably soft hair" I know I'm not the only one given to the passionate enjoyment of beautiful hair.

Oh yes, he's also a total bottom who begs to be used. We tried watching a movie together on the sofa after dinner but the snogging got out of hand and the movie was being ignored, frankly. We left the sofa together for a more congenial environment in which to satisfy his very reasonable requests over the next several hours. TH and I are affectionate cuddlers, the boy perhaps less so. Or maybe he's just as much a cuddler as the next bloke but didn't want to get too emotionally involved with us. *shrug* We've spoken a few times since and he seems keen to come by again although it sounds like he just wants to shag. That makes me a bit sad since I feel like I would like our family to be bigger and someone who enjoys both my and TH's company would be really great.

We did all have a lot of fun though. Ah well... :-)

Polyamory: First Foray

2010-08-12T11:53:00.005+01:00

Back in February this year I mentioned a character called Mr Lovely (ML) who entered our lives for a time. By entered our life I mean that The Husband fell in love with him and, apparently, he with The Husband. It lasted just over a month all told and had many interesting aspects. TH and I agreed to monogamy early in our relationship while we got to know one another and to settle down together. Right from the very start of our relationship, we've been able to speak freely to one another about our attractions to other men; what we find appealing etc and as such have a pretty good idea of what the other enjoys. About 9 years later we opened our relationship under what might best be described as challenging circumstances that involved some relationship counselling. Not the best way to do it by any means and I don't recommend it!

Several of my friends have happy long term polyamorous relationships. One guy is a mate from uni who more or less always felt that would be how he would like his family to be and even at uni spoke in moderate and intelligent ways about different family structures. Another gay friend lives with his husband and his husband's boyfriend. People relationships work strangely in my head in that I find group interactions contextless and often confusing. A year on from discovering my autism, my relationship with The Husband has gone from strength to strength and we're closer and more in tune than we have ever been. Our relationship, one to one is great. So it seems a bit peculiar that I'm quite comfortable with the idea of a polyamourous union.

Even for that short month, I was very happy to welcome someone else into our intimate space. All of us had dinners together, I played some games of badminton with Mr Lovely and it felt exciting and new. Both ML and TH are neurotypical and right from the outset we were open about my autism. There was a fair amount of talking as each of us discovered the other's boundaries and desires. TH and ML wanted to be able to spend a night together (without me) at some point and I was quite fine with that. They didn't get to in the end but it was discussed. I held both of them in my affections and it felt good to be able to offer them this gift although both of them wondered several times if my acceptance of their feelings and desires could be construed as them taking advantage of my autism. I was quick to rubbish that idea. Many different types of people embrace polyamory and I've not seen any literature about autism featuring in any aspect of polyamorous relationships. Many NTs find this to be a comfortable family structure, many NTs prefer monogamous or open relationships. There was no question of them taking advantage of anything other than the special feeling of love that can arise between to people who care for one another.

Both TH and I were sad when it ended and we've spoken positively about it since. I think we both hope to expand our little family, one way or another, at some point in the near future.

One Year On

2010-08-03T13:30:00.002+01:00

It was this time last year that I chanced on the discovery that I have Asperger Syndrome. What an incredible ride it has been. At times shocking, delightful, informative and interesting but in all aspects a tremendous boost to my personal development. The Husband pointed out that this discovery and my ability to put so much in context knowing about my autism became an obsession and this is bourne out in the topics of my posts over the last year. I've reread quite a few of them from the archive and grown misty eyed at several posts. This blog is a valuable archive for me.

I agreed with TH's assessment that this has consumed me and recognised the single pointed focus and burning drive in myself. It's a familiar feeling. Without my special interests and obsessions I feel quite adrift in the world... quite aimless. I think now that the bulk of the shock has worn off and most of the adjustments made now. I continue to grow to understand myself and others better each day but I finally feel the grip of obsession loosening. Just one year would mark this out as one of my shortest special interest or obsessions.

The good news is that you're likely to read about other aspects of my life here again soon. :-)

Where Do You Come From?

2010-07-12T15:22:00.007+01:00

I was born near Victoria Falls in Rhodesia before we moved to the city of Bhulawayo until I was about 5 years old. At that point the country of Rhodesia passed into history as Zimbabwe was born - heralding my family's departure for neighbouring South Africa. I attended most of primary school in the city of Pretoria, first 4 years at a Jewish school before I begged my parents to let me attend the local state school nearby for the remaining 2 years of primary school. My high schooling took place in two small towns, one in the far north of SA and one in the Eastern Cape province down south. I attended Rhodes University, also in the Eastern Cape, then worked for 6 years in Johannesburg before coming to London with The Husband.

My father is a South African Jew, mother was born Scots Protestant but observes the Jewish customs with my father. I was never Jewish enough for the Jews and too Jewish for the goyim. I practice Buddhism now. I hold South African and British citizenship, maintaining the South African one since it might be useful in the future but I feel little affection for the country. I wish South Africa well but both The Husband and I are happy we do not live there anymore. I've lived in London for almost 10 years now. This is the longest I have ever spent in one city and in one home ever in my life. I feel comfortable and settled here and enjoy being where I am.

"Where do you come from?" people politely enquire, shortly after meeting. I'm still quite lost to answer this question. "Southern Africa" gives some sense of the geography of my early years but little context of heritage or culture. I'm tempted to describe myself as British and a Londoner since this now meshes geograhy well with the culture in which I feel integrated. I notice that fellow Brit's answer the "where are you from" question often by their county first or nation, being English, Welsh, Scots or Northern Irish. I'm not sure if I can claim any of that heritage, having been born in Africa with some Scots blood but feeling most integrated in England. Many people have observed that many great capitals seem quite different, set apart from the country surmount. New York is not like America, Paris is not like France and London is not like England. So perhaps this is how I shall describe myself in future - I am a Londoner.

I'm of this place yet not quite like the rest of England. Perhaps I finally belong.

Beyond Nonverbal Communication

2010-06-14T23:45:00.005+01:00

In my previous post I talked about some of my difficulties with interpreting facial expressions and how uncomfortable I feel looking at other's faces for long. I've learned to cope by hiding my ignorance of other people's feelings and looking at them only long enough to be polite etc. Now that The Husband and I understand that our perception of the same situations will be different and how that difference might manifest, we know that we need to talk about emotional content and other nonverbal communication if we're to be on the same page. It also adds an extra dimension to our humour since we now have something more to joke about.

We enjoy following the Legend of the Seeker fantasy series on television. The season 2 finale aired recently with a climax scene involving the Kahlan killing her lover Richard by stabbing him in the chest while in the grip of powerful magic (see video below at 06:30 into the clip). I turn to The Husband and joke: "wow, she's really annoyed with him." We both laugh at the gross understatement. :-)

Nonverbal Communication

2010-06-14T21:11:00.010+01:00

It's funny looking back on some of the talks I attended many years ago regarding video conferencing. The person giving the talk lamented that business professionals weren't embracing video calling and consistently preferred to use traditional voice only communications even when video was possible. After all, more than 70% of communication was non-verbal, he said. I nodded and smiled and filed away another nice little fact - "70% of communication is non-verbal." I like collecting facts. There's another one safely held in the treasure chest for later inclusion in conversation... "70% of comm..." Very satisfying to know another fact. I remember something about this including body language and how better business people were very good at displaying comforting body language and interpreting the body language of others. I didn't really appreciate what that meant. I had no baseline you see. The clue is in the name "non-verbal", which is to say, people almost never talk about it directly.

Having discovered that I might have Aspergers has lead to the most fascinating discussions with other people. Many of those discussions have been very directly about perception of emotion in others. One of the examples that stands out is a scene from the recent re-imagining of Battlestar Galactica, season 1 episode 4: Act of Contrition. One emotionally charged scene involves the Commander Adama and his chief pilot, nicknamed Starbuck. Starbuck was previously engaged to the commander's younger son, Zack, as well as being Zack's flight instructor. She didn't think Zack was a capable pilot but let her feelings for him get in the way of busting him out of flying school. As a result, Zack made a critical error of judgement that lead to his death. Starbuck knew this but hid it from the family for many years. Commander Adama remains very close to and very fond of Starbuck, continuing to think of her as a daughter despite the tragedy. As it happens this piece of dirty laundry gets air time in this scene where Starbuck confesses to the Commander and admits her shame.

I'm curious regarding my perception of the situation in contrast with someone neurotypical so after watching that scene, I pause the video to ask The Husband what he thought. My take on the scene went something like "she was embarrassed and sad, he was very angry." In contrast, TH detected nearly suicidal shame in Starbuck and barely contained rage in the Commander. To him there was the almost tangible threat of deadly violence between them, barely contained by the tapestry of their affection for each other, their shared love of Zack and the desperate and tragic circumstance that lead to his death. This was clearly evident to TH from their body language and facial expressions. He's not alone in this perception since I've spoken to several other friends about it and they are all taken with it. It is a powerful and moving scene for them and according to several reviews, one of the best pieces of acting in that season.

As he talks through his perception of the various elements of the scene and the emotions of the characters, her slouching posture and face looking down unable to meet the commander's stare, his tense body, clenched teeth and fists, I can see that what he's describing is plausible but I don't get it. To me the scene is emotionally indistinguishable from most of the other people based scenes - I might understand only intellectually some of the emotions between the actors in each scene but no scene stands out because of its emotional content. I'm more excited by the scenes of the smaller space ships dog-fighting, whirling quickly through space with the clever constant motion camera work of the series. The quick pan and unsteady zooms give a sense of excitement and motion that most other action video don't.

Shortly after I discovered Aspergers and what that might mean I started watching my internal mental processes very carefully. I'm a buddhist and meditation is about getting to know one's mind so this is a natural extension of our meditation practice. I try to take very careful note of what happened, whether I thought or felt anything, when I thought and felt anything and occasionally talk this over with some of the very few people I trust on this level to see how they respond in similar situations. Many autism articles mention that many aspies have issues interpreting facial expressions so I've been talking through my perceptions with other people to see what they perceive. From those discussions I must conclude that this is true about me as well: I'm not very good at reading facial expressions. I recognise some, to be sure, but they tend to be the very obvious ones that involve very simple signs: a smile, a frown etc. Since this sort of stuff is nonverbal, as I said people don't really talk about it directly. It had never occurred to me that anyone else, that so many others were reading a vast amount more than I had thought possible. Conversely, no-one else had considered that I might be as poor as I am at interpreting facial expressions since one never talks about them.

I came across some autism learning resources including Mind Reading: The Interactive Guide to Emotions. This interactive DVD presents video clips of actors displaying particular facial expressions that (I'm told) ordinarily represent the emotions that person is feeling. This whole idea is rather bizzarre. I'm mostly over the idea that other people have emotions but I still feel a foggy confusion at the idea that most people naturally contort their faces in ways to show their internal mental and emotional state. Out of curiosity more than anything else, I bought the DVD and have tried to watch some of the guide. It was quite distressing, all told. I managed to watch about 15 minutes of video clips of actors faces portraying 3 different emotions: anger, revulsion and interest. There's a great variety more in the guide but I sampled a 2 negative ones and, for contrast, a positive one. I can see how the format might be useful as a learning aid in that one can play the facial expressions over and over to learn the patterns but it's tremendously hard for me. I can see their faces moving and changing but can't really make out what about the change is significant. The Husband watched a few with me and points out some of the things that he finds meaningful in the variety of actors portrails of a particular emotion. There are several actors showing the same emotion, one after the other since people don't indicate the same emotion in exactly the same way. Great. A confusing variety of facial changes to represent, apparently, the same internal emotional state. Gah! TH points out how their heads all tend to be tilted a bit this way, the muscles around their forehead and chins tend to do this etc.

Just 15 minutes and I'm close to vomiting with exhaustion and discomfort. I can't stand it any longer and just have to stop and lie on the ground with my eyes closed for about 30 minutes without talking. It surprised and distressed TH a bit to see me overwhelmed so quickly by a task that seems so ordinary. It didn't take long for me to feel completely overwhelmed just from looking at people's faces. I guess I've become better at hiding my difference than I thought for the man who's known be intimately for 14 years not to know this about me. I recall the other kids at school remarking how I was always looking away, looking at the ground etc. Could it be that I also have the typical aspie gaze avoidance? Hmm... I'm sure I'm better now as an adult than I was as a younger aspie but I'm now aware of how much other people look into one another's faces and towards one another than I am comfortable doing. I follow a carefully scripted look into my interlocutor's face at the beginning of a conversation, look away for about 3 seconds, look back at them directly for a second before it is polite to look only in their general vicinity. Wash, rince, repeat. I realise that other neurotypical people follow a similar pattern of not looking directly at one another for very long unless there is open hostility or desire between them but I do notice now that most other people tend more to observe one another whereas I do my level best not to look at others. I basically look as little as possible without seeming like a freak, a hard won coping mechanism. The more confident or dominant someone is, the more likely they are to look directly at other people for longer. I can barely stand to look into other people's faces for more than a few seconds before feeling deeply uncomfortable.

Have you really read this whole post? Wow. I'm keen to elaborate about my internal experience of autism rather than to write about the secondary observations by which one might indirectly conclude that someone might have autistic traits. How do you feel when you interact with other people? Can you look at them easily? Is it natural for you to look at them? Are their emotions and intentions a natural component of the conversation for you? Do you read that from their faces and body posture? For some people, it isn't like that.

Secondary Behaviour Observation

2010-06-14T16:56:00.003+01:00

My last post was about an AQ test that I came across and Paul left me a comment along the lines that he thought the test content was suspicious. When I talk about my autism to friends I generally get one of two reactions from them: curiosity or denial. Paul, I'm not sure if your comment is a reflection only on the test or on the applicability of a diagnostic label like autism to someone like me although it took much of the form of my other denialist friends. I'm not critisising your stance, everyone's free to an opinion. :-) It did get me thinking about writing a post contrasting first person experience about the facets of autism that explain my behaviours, thoughts and experiences with the secondary stuff like that explored by the AQ test and that one usually finds in formal literature about autism and Aspergers.

It's a big topic that I hope to explore in several posts that might follow this one but I thought I'd bring it up now and just set the tone with my current thoughts and feelings in general. I'm very happy to have found out about Aspergers. It is a useful handle on a large collection of phenomena that give me a better way to try to understand the world. I don't for a second think that autism in any of it's forms is a mental health issue; I'm firmly of the opinion that it is about neurodiversity. I am not ill. I do not need to be cured. I still think that I've had a very hard start in life, being subtly out of tune with the so much of society and having had so little understanding of social rules and non-verbal communication but I'm at peace with this now. I understand why it happened and while I regret that early intervention wasn't available for me, I'm a well functioning adult with a lovely home, a gorgious husband, family and friends. They all confuse the hell out of me every day but hey, don't we all have that to one degree or another?

Aspergers is one aspect of me. It does not define me but those autistic traits are an integrated part of my personality. I read a hillareous quote on wrongplanet.net the other day. It was a quote by Tony Attwood: "You don't suffer from Aspergers. You suffer from other people." I couldn't help but laugh out loud having read that. Yes, I know, it's like that for everyone at some point. The frequency and degree of that disturbance is much higher for autistic people than for neurotypical folks and I will try show some of that in the following posts. I look forward to your comments since I really have no idea what your experience of other people is like.

While I found that quote funny I would rather say that I don't suffer from Aspergers, I suffered from not knowing about Aspergers. Come along, let's go explore.

Take the AQ Test

2010-06-11T12:48:00.003+01:00

I happened on this Autism-Spectrum Quotient test on Wired today. My score: 42. *ahem*

I haven't felt like posting much and I suspect you may be bored with my Autism prattling. *shrug*

Jamie's Italian

2010-04-10T18:23:00.005+01:00

Last night The Husband and I went to eat at Jamie's Italian on Canary Wharf. We met one of TH's colleagues (PB) and his boss who is in town for a week. We know PB socially and it was through PB that TH got his job. His boss is really, really geeky.

I'm not fond of the restaurant's policy of not taking bookings for tables of less than 8 since it almost always means one must turn up, request a table and be told a ludicrous waiting time like 50 minutes even though they will often seat you in about 20 minutes. It annoys me. We got some drinks at the bar and then made small talk on the terrace while we waited for our table. The waiters would periodically wonder around the tables on the terrace calling a name then showing the people to their table. At one point one of the waitresses came passed holding menus saying what I thought to be "beverage" which I decline since we've just bought drinks. She looks blankly at me then explains: "No, it's a name. Bev Ridge" and wonders off. Something tells me that she doesn't realise that someone must be having a laugh at her expense since she eventually returns to the front desk without seating anyone. Probably a hazing joke by her colleagues.

The menu was sumptuous and very well written. Menu writing is an art in which one must name the dish according to what most food patrons will understand, list major ingredients and most importantly: make it sound delectable! I would happily have ordered over half the menu just on the basis of their well written menu. In the end we ordered starters of a meat platter with a veg platter. Small, unremarkable flavour-wise and easily overlooked in future. Hmm, what's that lovely term I heard the other day: poor price/performance ratio. The others had minute-steak which they said was exceptional while I had linguine pasta in a tomato based sauce with capers and some meat. I like my pasta to be quite soft. I've never been sure what people meant by al dente so I shall assume that the slightly harder than I like it pasta they served was al dente. One hopes that the Italian restaurant of a famous chef would get the pasta texture "right". The flavour of my dish was nice but I couldn't get past the texture of the pasta so in the end I didn't really enjoy it.

I might return here again but I shan't rush back.

Liability for User Comments

2010-04-08T23:38:00.003+01:00

A friend pointed out the following high court ruling to me regarding blog comments. A blog owner will not be held liable for the comments so long as they do not edit them in any way. To fix spelling, grammar or to edit comments in any way removes our protection under the law and might make us liable for what the user said on our blog. Moderating manually in any way, even to remove a comment after it was published without prior moderation brings user comments directly under the blog owners control and thus makes them liable for what users may say on their blogs. This last point isn't certain and hasn't been tested at a full trial and is the opinion of a solicitor.

I don't edit comments, only moderate whether a comments may appear. That happened after a Chinese spammer started leaving garbage comments. In all other situations I'll publish the comments without change. If you're a blogger, please be aware of this and pass on the message.

Mechanics of Connection: Reprise

2010-03-01T22:08:00.002Z

The Husband figured out the missing/flakey connection issue. I understand that communication connects us but the missing link for me is perceiving the emotion in others based on my actions. A much easier component of creating a connection with people is recognising when their actions make me feel something. This is quite a revelation to me, to realise that connection is based on people's actions creating feelings in others. This is really helpful since I know now what I should be looking out for.

And then it struck me moments after reading KenPaul66's comment on a previous article, that you, dear reader, will have feelings about what I write here!

I have no idea how you might perceive my musing. I hope you're enjoying the journey. :-)

Mechanics of Connection

2010-03-01T15:14:00.005Z

The Husband and I have had another amazing round of deep and meaningful conversation contrasting our experience of emotions. This followed on from my description of The Bridge Incident to him. He articulated the most ingenious thing regarding emotional connectionthat had quite escaped me before. When you have a feeling because of another person's actions, you're connected to them. Astonishing!

Makes sense though: I waved, they felt good; they waved I felt good; connection established.

It's superb to know this but this concept brings me back to knowing rather than feeling. What made The Bridge Incident so different and special is that I spontaneously felt the connection and felt happy as a result of it. I'm used to feeling anxiety, frustration and irritation because I don't understand a great many social situations in which people play a part but these are not emotions that might inspire a desirable connection to those people. Most importantly to me I know I am connected to my wonderful husband but my feelings of connection to him are... hard to experience. That is not to say I don't experience them, just that they are elusive. It's like I sense them on the periphery of my vision but as I turn to look they're not there to look at directly. But I experience them as being present... somehow.

I suspect that I'm used to coping so much with the intellectual part of my brain and that connectivity to the emotion processing parts aren't well developed. Trying to sense emotion with the intellect is like using a wire coat hanger for a dousing rod to find a radio signal. You might occationally pick up something faintly because the item you're using is roughly speaking an aerial, but it's not connected correctly. Plug it into a radio and turn the tuning dial instead of holding it in your hands and waiting for it to swing in the right direction as if by magic.

Buggered if I know how to translate metaphors into experiencing emotion any better though. On the upside, I have felt connected recently and know I can feel that way. Just need a good rule set...

Belonging by Waving

2010-02-27T01:39:00.005Z

A wonderful thing happened on the way to work yesterday. I rode the dragon to work and part of my route to work passes under a pedestrian footbridge. As I passed under it an elderly lady was lifting a 4 year old girl up to put her hands on the railing and see down the road, probably grandma with her grand-child. The timing was just perfect. She lifted the little girl to look down the road just as I approached the bridge so I waved to them and they waved back.

And that's when the wonderful thing happened. By waving I had reached out to these nice strangers emotionally, they had accepted the connection and reciprocated to make me feel good as they did. This simple communication created a brief and light emotional connection with these nice people. By feeling connected even lightly with these anonymous people near my home created a sense of belonging. Belonging in this neighbourhood. Belonging with these nice people.

This made me very happy. :-)

Games

2010-02-24T14:35:00.007Z

Early on monday morning I went to play badminton with Mr Lovely (more about him later). Although it was the racket game I played the most as a child, I haven't played recently. It was great fun and for the most part we seem evenly matched. When we were having lunch today with The Husband, it came out that he was holding back a bit and might just have let me win the first game. I was holding back a bit too and didn't want to win by too big a margin although I didn't have to hold back in the second game, which Mr Lovely won.

During the game he mentioned at one point that I seemed very competitive. That confused me. I've heard people make observations like that before but I honestly didn't understand what it might imply or what he was trying to communicate. So according to my new rule, I started to ponder what feelings might be involved regarding the game. And that's when it hit me! The whole point of the game is to spend time together, enjoying one another's company. The point of the game is to make both people feel better. D'uh!

Previously I considered games to be a framework of rules to be worked through with the ultimate point of winning the game. Which probably made me appear to be overly aggressive. And insensitive. :-( Not much fun to play with. What a change in perspective. I must say I feel pretty stupid having only thought of this now. This must seem so obvious and basic, even to children and here I only figure it out in my mid 30s. *sigh*

When I mention this to TH, he follows on with the importance of a group dynamic in team sports. *boggle* I never understood team sports. I was forced to attend sporting matches by my school so I'd pitch up in uniform and sit and read a book on my own if I couldn't weasle out of going altogether. It just made no sense and I had no reason to go. So there's a flow of emotion between the players on the team and between the teams. What!? More? A mass of emotion flowing through the crowd of spectators and between rival spectators and their teams??!? At this point I feel a reaonably strong wave of nausea at the thought of so much feeling and emotion between potentially thousands of people. It makes me feel physically ill to contemplate emotion in others deeply.

It's very interesting to know about and I'm very happy I've seen this perspective. Which is telling. I like to know it, not to feel it. Interesting all the same.

Dentist Visit

2010-02-24T13:49:00.004Z

It was time for a checkup. No other reason I'd go. Going to the dentist is one of my least favourite activities. Flossing is a close second although I've made it part of my routine and know that it's important for my oral health, but I dislike it none the less. It's like taxation. We all know it's necessary for managing shared facilities like roads, hospitals and schools but that's not to say we like it. If I were to use a turn of phrase to mean I'd rather not do something, for me it would be "I'd rather floss!"

My regular dentist is on holiday so the receptionist booked an appointment with another dentist at the same practice. The bloke had a nicer manner about him which put me more at ease than my regular dentist so I think I'll go back to him. Their surgery is very modern and comfortable - tasteful jazz music playing and pretty landscape pictures on the ceiling for patients to look at while they embed their nails in the reclining chair to deal with the anxiety of drilling sounds in their head. The dental X-rays are quick and simple. They position a machine, ask you not to move, bolt from the room during the burst of radiation (bound to fill one with confidence) and the images appear immediately on a computer screen for examination and archiving.

All the dentists at this practice like to talk to me about my dental X-Rays. I'm not sure why - perhaps to make me feel I'm getting good value for money - frankly, I don't want to know. Just get on with it! Anyway, I feign interest as he talks through why this dark spot here means that but that dark spot between these two fillings probably doesn't mean anything. I think I had an excellent science education and I've done a spot of digital image processing in my time as a computer programmer so I'm comfortable saying "it's an artifact created by the interference as the rays bounce off those two fillings." Fully two seconds pass of him staring at me in blank faced astonishment before he lights up with joy and goes through a further 15 second dentist style geek out that a patient knew what an artifact was, recognised it on their own X-Ray image and that he could talk a bit of technical jargon with someone for a bit. It was quite camp actually. Hands were flapped. It was amusing in the end and quite nice that one little phrase could make him so happy.

As I mull over his response it seems a bit sad now. He was basically letting on that he feels quite intellectually isolated in his job. He's clearly a very clever and knowledgable man who can't talk about what he does or why things work the way they do with most of the people around him. It's also a bit sad that science knowledge and interest isn't more widespread in the population.

So much from a little susceptibility artifact. Isn't life strange?

Happy Valentines!

2010-02-13T18:44:00.005Z

I hope this day's a hearty one for you all. May that special, sexy someone tell you and show you how much you mean to them.

And if you're single then take heart, for your love is out there waiting for you. Like Diana Ross and The Supremes sang, You Can't Hurry Love!

Jealousy

2010-02-13T15:52:00.014Z

(Update: Included description of group dynamic in relationship enumarations and use of coping mechanism. Corrected the relationship counts for groups of 4 and 5 people.)

A few years ago, when The Husband and I were going for couples counseling, the subject of jealousy came up in the context of our open relationship. I said quite matter of fact, that I didn't experience jealousy and never had. This puzzled the heck out of TH and our counsellor and neither really accepted what I'd said, instead inventing some NT style explanation that I couldn't admit to it or it was so hard for me to deal with that I'd pretend to myself that it wasn't there. *shrug* They asked and I told it like it was in the spirit of engaging with the sessions to find a meaningful progression with out relationship and get through some very tough times.

We didn't know about my Aspergers back then. We do now. With this in mind TH understands and accepts that I wasn't diverting attention from a deep and troubling problem and that I genuinely don't feel jealousy. For quite a long time he would try to provoke me into a jealous reaction with zero results. Nothing at all. Crushingly, this lead him to believe that I no longer really felt anything for him anymore and that my verbal expressions of love were false. I'm deeply relieved that he doesn't think this anymore and that we've been able to discuss each other's perspectives with much deeper understanding.

If I see something/someone make him happy then I'm happy because I love him deeply and want him to be happy. The descriptions of jealousy that I've read and heard about involve an angry response when someone sees their lover being intimate with another. For this to happen, the onlooker must be able to sense the emotions in his lover and the other person. They must also feel insecure about their relationship with their lover and feel that they are in competition for their lover's attention with this other person. That their lover can only love one person at a time. Pretty much all of these things must come together for jealousy to arise.

I have very poor social imagination. That is not to say that I can't sometimes calculate someone's interests and project their likely behaviour, but it's nearly impossible for me to hold situations in my head that involve people. A one person interaction with me is about as rich as it gets for me to have a reasonable understanding. So when a friend or colleague starts to talk about Harry feeling good about Bob's promotion because of what Sally said the other day to Sue who is going to be Bob's new subordinate - I get a huge dose of anxiety and pressure as my brain tries to make some sense of it before drawing a blank. One is expected to show understanding and perhaps to comment on why a certain juxtaposition is interesting but I've just drawn a blank so I get another dose of anxiety as I try to imagine what they expect me to understand about the situation. In the end I'm used to deploying a coping mechanism of noding sagely and saying something like "Mmm, yes I know", which is about as far from my real experience as one can get.

There's more than me and one other person in the scenario. Each time another person is mentioned, the degree of complexity and number of potential interpersonal interactions goes up by an almost factorial order of complexity (see the math for combinations). Harry+Bob = 1 relationship. Harry+Bob+Sally = 4 relationships: Harry+Bob, Bob+Sally, Harry+Sally & Harry+Bob+Sally. The last one mentioned being the special relationship called "the group dynamic". Harry+Bob+Sally+Sue = up to 11 relationships. 5 people = up to 25 relationships depending on who's interacting with whom. I can fake being able to process this with various coping mechanisms but I really don't get it. Adding many people to a scenario in my head is like assembling unordered things without any obvious similarity. Harry+Bob+Sally in my head might go something like Blue+Sweet+Angry. It's just confusing! Adding more people to the confusing mix just makes it worse: Blue+Sweet+Angry+Luminous+Heavy = ??? (if you can draw something sensible out of this, please comment below).

So when TH interacts with someone else, I draw a blank. Whether he's angry or in love, I don't know what to feel about the other interaction. I understand some of his feelings and I can talk about and interact with him about his feelings, but adding the knowledge of another person being part of the scenario confuses me, so I tend to ignore them as an actor in the scenario.

I have been wondering, though, if he wants or needs me to act jealously about him as a means of feeling appreciated. I would fake that if it made him feel better but I'd only be acting.

Belonging by Queuing

2010-02-12T23:39:00.009Z

The most bizarre thought occurred to me today: people have feelings when they're queuing! I was standing on an escalator, one person ahead of me and two or three behind me. Each person was standing in a place on the device according to the order in which they'd arrived. I got the notion that people arbitrarily have feelings about one another and can't avoid having some appreciation for a group dynamic when several people are gathered in a space by some of my aspie books. The Husband verifies that this is so for NTs. So by standing together in a queue, or on an escalator, the other people had some feelings about each other and the group. Weird!

What could those feelings be? Queue etiquette in Britain is really explicit which is to say that acceptable behaviour is easy to determine. Always give precedence to others who arrive first. It is possibly the rudest thing one can possibly do to queue jump. If there is one social offence which might inflame modern, well mannered Brits into publicly lynching someone, it's queue jumping. So feelings about queuing are strong, whatever they are. Like my university acquaintance Mr Shaggy Idealist says: there might only be one person at the bus stop when you get there but you can be sure they're in a queue that numbers just one. Your arrival should raise the number of people in the queue.

On the face of it, queuing is about fairness. First come, first served. Getting in line shows respect to those who arrived earlier. There is an implicit hierarchy or ranking according to time by which the group orders itself. So by standing in the right place they show respect to one another. The group dynamic is based on fairness and mutual respect. Could it even be that just by participating in this transitory group behaviour, the people feel like they belong together in their queue?

By standing together they feel they belong together even for a short time??!? *boggle* How weird is that?

How pathetic is it that I only figure this out at the tender age of nearly 35? And how sad that I've never felt like I've ever belonged anywhere. Even writing this sentence I'm aware now of my preference to conclude the previous sentence with the word "anywhere" rather than the phrase "with anyone". I love TH to bits but a sense of belonging eludes me. I'm not sure what it's like but I know I want it. Would I recognise it when it arose? I lived with my parents and brother for nearly 2 decades but I can't recall a sense of belonging with them either. I've read this elsewhere that other aspies have poor family bonds. I must confess, I recognise this about my own situation and it gives me great sadness.

So a new resolution: figure out what it means to belong and how it feels. Then make it happen. Belong!

Free Coffee

2010-02-11T23:10:00.005Z

I'm a frequent buyer of Pret A Manger food and coffee. One of my restrictive menu choice patterns that persists is that I enjoy drinking soya mochas. The first one I ever had was from Starbucks but Pret food is tastier and cheaper. My rush breakfast has become a Pret soya mocha and a chocolate croisant. From time to time I'll branch out for an almond croisant to replace the chocolate one but there isn't much variety there. Today I tried a Starbucks muffin and soya mocha and, frankly it was rubbish. The Pret staff are always friendlier than Starbucks staff too. Not Ocado friendly you understand, but chatty and smiley all the same.

My coffee buying pattern typically forms around one store that I go to early in the morning and once in a while in the afternoon. Once I feel comfortable with that store I ignore almost all other coffee shops around it. I'm always friendly to the staff and politely greet them before ordering. I must stand out from the crowd because usually after 3 weeks the staff always chat to me while I wait for my drink, they always know it's a soya mocha and after a few months of this I start receiving free coffees. This pattern has endured at 4 different stores in different locations I've worked at around London over the last 6 years. At the one store in Islington near where I worked a year ago, there was always a long queue in the morning so I was pleased as punch to get to the head of the queue, pay and take my ready made drink straight away. They'd see me enter the shop and the mocha was ordered straight away. :-)

I took on a new contract 5 months ago and I work in a different part of London now. After 4 months of making myself a regular at the store nearest my office, I banter with the staff and they've got to know me a bit. They still haven't figured out that I only ever order one type of drink but they recognise me and we chat. There are 3 main characters: the English manager and the smiliest Colombian woman in London and a Chinese man who speaks English *exactly* the way Chinese people speaking English is shamlessly lampooned by Cartman on South Park. He's lovely but I do have to make an effort not to giggle inappropriately and go all Cartman on him.

Today, Smiley Colombian Lady and The South Park Chink both gave me free coffee for the first time; one in the morning and another in the afternoon. Ah! The new work neighbourhood feels like home now.

Soothing Lounge Music

2010-02-08T23:57:00.005Z

This is just what I needed to hear today. Nicola Conte's new album Rituals has a gorgeous track on it called Black is the Graceful Veil which you can listen to for free on Spotify. Alive with rhythm yet silky smooth female vocals with a vibrant percussion line.

Totally yummy. Just what I needed to hear today. :-) Perked me right up. Go listen and enjoy!

Day of Hell

2010-01-30T14:09:00.008Z

Last Friday was truly awful. I've been having sleep issues, which is unusual for me. Normally I can sleep through a hurricane but I've been getting to bed late, trouble getting to sleep then up later in the morning. Tired all through the day. Not good.

Something that's been worrying me is wondering not only if I'm good enough for my lovely man, but whether I'm bad for him. :'( One of the many things that the discovery of my Aspergers has made clear is how in recent years he has been trying to form a deeper emotional rapport with me. My responses have puzzled and confused him randomly switching from an apparently good rapport when I've been well rested and my coping mechanisms are working well, to being indifferent or neutral when I don't pick up his non-verbal cues or I'm not paying very close attention. Understanding what I lack in natural automatic emotional responses that are so important to NTs in intimate relationships, I quickly calculated that even though I love The Husband to bits and he says he loves me, continuing our relationship might actually be bad for him in that I will always be this way. There is no cure, nor would I want to be cured of being myself.

It has been a tremendous shock to come to terms with understanding what Autism is and how it applies to me but I am more at peace with myself and who I am than I have ever been. I am content that in many ways I am weaker at certain tasks such as social functioning than 99% of the population, but I am much stronger in other ways. These are integrated facets of my personality that make me quirky but I am who I am. Which was not to say that I just being me might cause my lovely man some pain. Realising this made me very sad and I wondered if the difficulty might outweigh the gains from our relationship for him. As they say, when you love someone, set them free. It seemed completely logical that I might have to leave him so that he could be with someone who would make him happier than I ever can and I would do that for him. (Still brings a tear to my eye to write this.) Perhaps you might think this strange that I might be considering the logic of my relationship to the man I care so deeply about, gentle reader, but that is how I am. My brain works differently to most of yours. The logical calculating part of mine works very well while the emotion sensing and ability to get the gist of situations part is very weak. It seems completely natural for me to calculate clinically the merits each situation with the emotional and social content carrying proportionately a very small weight in my calculations when compared to who you might evaluate the same situation. That's because you're using a different part of your brain to do the same task. Different machinery - different result.

Apparently I'm not the only aspie to think this way and it took The Husband a fair few days to be able to talk about his feelings on the subject and to convince me that despite any difficulties, he loves me very, very deeply and would never leave me for just being myself. He admits that looking back on years of trying to mesh his emotional rhythms with me with confusing and inconsistent results has been disappointing and sad but the knowledge of how different we are is a new beginning for us both. We now look on each situation with much greater understanding of each other's point of view and we are growing closer together like we never dreamed possible.

We love each other and each day makes us stronger. There's still a long hill to climb but we're resolved to climb it together, hand in hand with love in our hearts.

Full Service from Ocado

2010-01-24T14:36:00.012Z

We buy our non-food grocery items from Ocado. The products are good quality, cheaper than Tesco and the delivery people are much friendlier. We enjoy buying fresh food items from a local market where the quality is much higher than you can find in supermarkets or the high street and it's nice to know we're supporting the little guy - direct support for the maker of the goods without any big transport companies and other middle men in the way.

I accepted a delivery recently, at about 7pm the one evening after I got home from work. The Husband placed the order online so Ocado have his contact details for the delivery. He reminded me several times to be home for 7pm for the delivery and everything was going to plan. I'd changed my work clothes for a T-shirt and jeans and was relaxing on my own in the apartment waiting for the delivery, getting ready to prepare supper for TH and I to eat together after he returned from his errand. The doorbell rang and I greeted a friendly young guy in a green Ocado vest at the door and help him bring our groceries in. When we'd put all the bags in the kitchen I helped him take the crates to the door. He suddenly broke out in a huge smile as he asked me to sign for the delivery. I noticed the huge change in facial expression and a kind of bright shining energy beaming our of his chest but thought nothing of it other than that he's friendly and appreciated me helping to unload the groceries. I signed, he departed an I went back inside to pack them away.

Half and hour later, TH gets home as I'm finishing the supper preparations. I greeted him affectionately with a hug, kiss and a cuddle, as we do, then start chatting about our day when his telephone receives a text message. It's not a telephone number he knows and the message simply said: "Your wife is a very lucky person." We look at each other in confusion and guess that it's a misdirected message. He responds and the conversation with the Mystery Caller (MC) goes something like this:

TH: I don't have a wife. Did you mean to send me that message?

MC: Are you gay?

TH: Yes. Who is this?

MC: You're a very sexy guy.

TH: Thank you but how do you know me?

MC: I probably shouldn't tell you this. I'm the Ocado delivery guy from this evening.

...

After a few more text messages it turns out the delivery guy thought he was texting me using the delivery contact details from the Ocado order! Kind of sweet and very surprising that a cheeky young guy would risk his job to chat up a customer. TH manages to get a gaydar profile name from him so that he can have a look (he wasn't present during the delivery and I thought the delivery guy was forgettable). Ocado delivery guys really are much friendlier. The company clearly tries to deliver a full service.

Note to self: that's what people look like when they're attracted to you.

New Rule: It's Because of Feelings

2010-01-22T14:03:00.008Z

I've been introspecting a lot over the past 6 months. This has been a time of tremendous growth for both me and The Husband. The process involves a combination of me observing my thoughts and behaviours, comparing those observations with situations describes in some of the good aspie books that we have then talking over my observations with The Husband. It surprises me still how much I don't understand in the flow conversation with NTs and it surprises the hell out of TH how good I am at pretending to be normal and covering up my ignorance and confusion.

My latest breakthrough in understanding my world is a new rule: when confusion strikes in conversation, it's because the other person is having feelings. I doubt this will surprise NTs since, from what many people have said to me, it's quite normal for NTs to be cognisant of the emotional state of others. Sometimes their accuracy in telling other's emotions is better than at other times but in my case, it almost never occurs to me that other people have emotions or that I might be able to discern them and that their emotions affect our interaction.

NTs have a much broader and deeper range of emotional responses that occur more frequently than I experience. I can't speak for other aspies but I'm concious now that my emotional domain isn't spacious. I'm quite content with this situation since it appears that the greater the emotional range that NTs have, the greater the burden that they must carry. While there are undoubtably great highs to be had, the lows seem to come a bit more frequently. The relationship between NTs and their emotions seems to me at times like a drug addict chasing their next fix. Despite having to wade through some terrible comedowns and being driven to desperate acts from time to time, the highs are always worth the chase. The more balanced and happy NTs around me seem to have a more moderate relationship with their feelings and, from my very limited perceptive stance, a more manageable emotional range. So I'm quite happy being me in this regard.

The new rule is very useful to me. When I find myself tripping over something in conversation I try to take stock of what the emotional component might be. I've taken to asking TH how he perceives the same emotional component of conversations where he was also present or about conversations I've had with him and I'm getting better at figuring it out. As with my own emotional depth, my guesses tend towards a shallower interpretation of emotions in others when compared with TH's interpretation of the same event. Where previously I would just be confused and lost, I now have a handle of what I might have missed and this has had a wonderful effect on lowering my stress in social situations.

Like many aspies, I take words quite literally. A turn of phrase that has always confused and annoyed me is "when I ______, as a person, ...". As a person? Yes I can see you are one. What the hell else would you be? "When I _____, as a teenage mutant ninja turtle?" It occurred to me to apply the new rule and calculated that the most likely option is that the person is deliberately trying to emphasise their emotions in the conversation and to indicate that their emotions are strongly felt on the topic under discussion. TH more or less agrees. OK, one less thing to be confused about in conversation. One less scenario that might cause me stress.

We're getting there. :-)

Value of the Written Word

2009-09-28T14:25:00.007+01:00

In my previous post, I wrote about my difficulty interpreting non-verbal communication. I think this is one of the reasons why I took to the Internet and its written medium so well. Non-visual communication on the Internet is almost completely absent. People have to write explicitly what they're thinking, feeling and what it is they require of me. They'll pepper IM and email conversations with smileys and the words "OK", "cool", "right" as well as "hmm", "no", "that's not what..." and so on. These little written cues for me are like the feedback that NTs probably need from others when you talk to them IRL. Written communications on the Internet also keeps it brief which is a relief.

Except my for my blog, that is, which is where I permit myself to ramble a bit. I know my posts have recently become long and may take a while to read. You have the freedom to read at your leisure, or to depart without insulting me. When I ramble IRL I can bore or distress my interlocutors. When they flee me in mid-ramble, it distresses me. Knowing about AS I feel better equiped to avoid such unpleasantness, both visiting it upon my friends and family and experiencing the awkwardness it brings about.

Welcome to my (written, explicit) world. Stay or depart as you choose.

Life at the Masked Ball

2009-09-28T14:02:00.024+01:00

Life's a ball for some. Mine's a masked ball. Everyone's face is obscured by an elegant mask. The masks have painted expressions on them: smiles, leers and frowns - all decorative. The painted expressions have nothing to do with how the people underneath them actually feel. So the masks are actually misleading, serving only to give a first impression relevant perhaps to the party atmosphere. One can't rely on what is painted for decoration to give you any clues. The masks hide all feeling and understanding laughter at the ball is tricky. Only sometimes can one see their eyes through the masks so it's hard to tell what they're looking at. Are they laughing with you, at you, at someone else..?

Every moment of every day near people is like being at the ball. What I struggle the most with is the emotional feedback from colleagues and friends. I could step into a circle of people but I don't know if I'm welcome or if I'm intruding. I battle to know when to talk and how I'm perceived by others. When one meets people for the first time they are almost always polite and smile. I assume that this is the politeness of social formula while they get to know you. One must maintain the smiling mask to boost the chances that newly met people will think favourably of one in the longer term. From what I've read of NT people, after spending a few minutes with other people they get an impression of how they are perceived by others. I'm not for a second suggesting that this is perfectly reliable and I know that unpleasant NTs can lie convincingly about their feelings, to beguile others until something of value is obtained after which they might show their true colours.

My difference is that I don't get any impression at all of how others feel about me. It's like my brain is wired to know that a signal should arrive but the ability to detect the signal isn't there. I can almost never tell people's intentions. Waiting for the signal to arrive, knowing that it should and it never comes causes anxiety and the anxiety is tremendous. It leads to a lot of negative feelings about myself that distract and depress me. The people are still smiling. Is it politeness or do they like me? No signal yet that they like me. A minute and thirty seconds into a group conversation is typically when the politeness mask drops and people adopt a neutral look. Did I offend or confuse? Is it just the mask of politeness being changed because the social formula permits it? Maybe they don't like me. They're neutral because they don't want to show that they dislike me. I'd know and feel that they like me if they did and I don't feel it so maybe they're hiding their dislike of me. So maybe they dislike me and are trying to deceive me... *gutted* What did I do wrong? I don't understand.

As with all parties, one should only smile at the ball. Only painted frowns are permitted - vapid decorations that serve for variety and which can be dismissed for being of no consequence by the party goers. Balls are a time for dancing and capers to surprise and amaze. Congratulations! I'm amazed and bewildered. I wonder constantly how people feel about me. What was the point of that gesture? There is no certainty at the ball. My obsession with acting normal demands that I try to pretend that there is no anxiety and simply copy the performance of the group. If people are light hearted and bantering, copy. If the mood is heavy and deep with philosophy, copy. Pretend. Without knowing why the mood is this way or how it came to be, just copy blindly.

All I see are the masks and I don't know what they mean.

Drinking Tea - Chinese Style

2009-09-28T13:52:00.008+01:00

This weekend, The Husband and I went into one of our favourite restaurants in Chinatown for yum cha with friends. The restaurant still does the old fashioned trolley service to the tables which I adore. Our friends are a lovely couple of South African expats, like us, and I always enjoy meeting up with them. They are warm, expressive and very genuine people. We spent about 5 hours eating lovely dim sum, chatting and wandering through shops. Rather than some bland initials to identify them, I'm tempted to characterise them by a Mister Men moniker. Let's go with Mr Comfy and Little Miss Bubbles.

They know about my Aspergers and are accepting, trying to be helpful where possible. I say accepting because they don't understand fully yet. Neither do I, frankly. Not fully anyway but I can communicate the great many ways in which I don't quite fit in that obviously seem AS related. In email conversation Mr Comfy pointed me to an article on the Manager Tools web site articulating how to join a group politely at social occations. It's a very interesting piece but I seldom struggle with introductions. I struggle with reading people individually as well as reading the group dynamic after joining in. The next post is an excerpt from our conversation. I tried to explain to them how AS feels to me.

Mind Blind

2009-09-11T23:44:00.005+01:00

Nice Therapy Lady: "Remember the accident you had the other week?"
Sir Wobin: "Yes."
NTL: "What do you think the gentleman in the car who knocked you off felt?"
SW: "Uhh.. *boggle* What? I have no idea. It never occurred to me that he would have feelings about the accident at all. It seems completely logical now that you mention it. Thinking back, I still have no idea what he might have felt!"
NTL: "You don't think he might have felt embarrassed to have knocked someone off their motorcycle in full public view? Perhaps he felt nervous or ashamed that he might have hurt you."
SW: "I have no idea. *shrug* He seemed calm and made it a priority to get me and my bike to the side of the road and check that I was alright. He even said 'as long as you're OK, everything else can be fixed by the insurance.'"
NTL: "And this morning when I was opening the door... I fumbled with the keys for quite a while. What do you think I was feeling?"
SW: "Hmm... You frowned and the corners of your mouth turned down so I think you were a bit angry and frustrated. It's early in the morning so you probably haven't woken fully yet and might be feeling a bit tired, I suppose."
NTL: "You don't think that maybe I was feeling clumsy and a bit embarrassed that I couldn't open my own front door? Embarrassed that this happened in front of someone else perhaps..."
SW: "Gosh no. How would I know that?"
NTL: "It's not a big deal but I was just curious. I cracked a joke to break the tension, the way people do in these sorts of situations."
SW: "Well yeah. You made a small joke and I joined in to laugh with you. I realise that's expected but I didn't feel any tension during your problem with the door lock this morning. It just seemed like a social formula... Something that people do in those situations and I'm expected to smile and look happy. I'd have been just fine with or without the joke to be honest."

...

Thai Swimboy Returns

2009-09-08T20:37:00.004+01:00

After my workout a few weeks ago, I decided to treat myself to a nice spa at my gym. I rinsed myself under a brief shower then went to enjoy the warm water pools. There's a great little corner that is quite secluded; I see very few people and I can sit quietly by myself enjoying the warmth of the water without conversation. Whenever I'm around people I'm anxious. I can't tune out of conversation so if I hear people talking I can't help but follow what they're saying. Seeing people has a similar effect - I can't seem to tune out the fact that they're there and that keeps me on high alert. So my little sanctuary without the sight of people or conversation is essential if I'm to find the spa relaxing.

The sensuous warmth of the water leaches much of the stress and strain from my body. My muscles were starting to ache from the workout but much of the underlying tension was gone. Having had some time to relax I was ready once more to be around people and thought I might find some company in the sauna. When I got there I was delighted to find Thai Swimboy. He's been MIA from the gym for about 6 months and I wondered where he'd gone. Last we'd spoken he'd been about to go home on holiday and I had wondered if he'd decided to stay.

He was smiling and obviously happy to see me so we chat for a while to catch up. It wasn't long before we had the sauna to ourselves and it's evident that TSB is positively delighted to see me. We enjoyed getting reacquainted - me with his tight muscled swimmer's body and smooth coffee coloured skin - him with my large hairy pecs and beard. Our hands spend a fair amount of time under each other's towels, lost in giving pleasure. After a while we stop at the same time. It's been fun but the heat of the sauna and our passion combined is just too much and we both feel the need to cool off. We shower and head to our respective lockers to dress.

I wondered if he might linger a while outside to chat more but he shoots off home without waiting. Ah well. It's nice to see him back at the gym. :-)

Pace

2009-09-08T19:49:00.004+01:00

These past few weeks have brought revelation after revelation. My pace of development feels quite staggering sometimes and occasionally I just have to say stop! No more! Let what I've just learned sink in. When I've processed it we can go on.

I've almost finished the Solutions for Adults book and it's been very helpful. In some respects I think it takes a very negative view of Aspies and our famed inflexibility. I take particular issue with the chapters about AS/NT marriages in which the author frequently punts the notion that while some change by the AS partner is possible most of the change and flexibility is up to the NT partner. The Husband and I are both trying to adjust as best we can. We're both learning to improve our communication and now that he can explicitly articulate some of his needs and desires I'm resolved to do my best to meet them.

I'm aware that several times now I've thought that some piece of Aspie literature wasn't particularly relevant to me only to be shown otherwise. To my credit, I try to be open minded and constantly review whether my thoughts and expectations match my words and reality. The help, observations and opinion of my wonderful man are absolutely invaluable to me. I trust him so much and it has been a blessing to be able to talk through my perceptions with him to compare and contrast how he interprets the world compared to me.

I'm daunted that this is just the beginning. There's so much more to learn but every day gives me a greater sense of groundedness and the confidence to be myself. Best of all, I'm learning that being me is downright wonderful. :-)

Capital Letters

2009-09-04T23:38:00.005+01:00

There was an interesting article on the beeb's website today about capital letters. It's just the sort of language geekiness I love. As I read the article I skimmed quickly over some woman being fired and really soaked up the factual information from the academic typographer about the history of lettering. I love languages, seeing how they're put together, how one grows out of another, differences and similarities in word construction and lettering.

The Husband and I both have iPhones and we both have the emoji keyboards enabled and enjoy sending each other emoji picture stories. I find that my brain processes the picture stories much more easily, intuitively and enjoyably than reading our latin alphabets. To process the language meeting from text one must sound out the letters on the page, 'hear' the sound of the word in your mind then match the word to a concept in your mind. Seeing a picture of a bear is quicker and simpler to understand than interpreting the text 'bear'.

Today we had the following snippet of emoji conversation. There was text too but I've removed it since it isn't relevant to this post. Emoji are very limited in number so we've had to improvise in some respects with what is available. For one reason or another the little brown bear has come to mean me and the tiger is TH. My text on a green background above tells him that I'll cycle home quickly tonight to love him, eat supper, watch some television, more of that hearty stuff ;-) and later to sleep. You can interpret his reply below for yourself.

Meaning is imprecise and personal. The better one knows the message sender the more likely that the meaning can be decoded as the sender intended. That's part of what make these little stories so special to us.

Emotional Competence

2009-08-31T23:25:00.007+01:00

The first book I got really stuck into was the Solutions for Adults with Asperger Syndrome by Juanita Lovett. It explained the problems that Aspies have with central coherence and theory of mind quite nicely. The brain physiology differences observed between Aspies and NTs was interesting, particularly the way they can tie the physiology differences up to problems with central coherence and theory of mind. I might write more about these ideas later but what has really caught my attention was the opening chapter of the section titled "Living with AS". The chapter is about developing emotional competence as one of the many techniques for improving my life.

I've been attending talking therapy for depression for about 14 months now. It was recommended to me by several people that I trust but it hasn't really produced much of a result - even my therapist said recently "I honestly don't know why you come back here." Let's call her Nice Therapy Lady. I toyed with the nickname of Means Well Therapy Lady but that might be too cynical. ;-) She's often tried to get me to talk about my emotions, how I feel talking about a memory or how I feel at the current time and almost always my answer has been "nothing". It's like a big grey void. A great big sticking plaster over... something. I have a vague impression that there might be something around the edges of the void, just out of sight beyond the periphery of vision for the inner eye.

I can remember times I've been angry, happy, sad, depressed, frustrated or hopeful but these have been times of very high emotion. Most of the time I don't really recall much emotion. The literature speaks about this being a common quality of Aspies, though not exclusive to Aspergers - referred to as Alexithymia. As I read about this in the book I thought to myself that it didn't really apply to me. I understood my emotions quite well thank you very much. Why, for example, right then as I read it I was feeling... uhh... Well I suppose you could say it was like... uhh...

Then I remembered all the sessions when Nice Therapy Lady's questions about my emotions produced answers of similar quality. Hmm.

So the book continues that many Aspies find it easier to write about their emotions than to talk about them. It recommended keeping a diary or journal that one might consult from time to time and this blog is the most natural place for me to do that. So, Dear Reader, let us embark upon a new journey together to discover my emotions. Please, by all means, comment on your emotional responses to things I write here for I am very curious to know how you think and feel. My thoughts and yours will probably be quite different - whether you're AS or NT - for each person out there is a new perspective all their own. I would be honoured if you would share your thoughts and feelings in this way here you will be helping me to learn.

Back to basics then. The book recommended a technique that Nice Therapy Lady has begun to explore with me: feelings have connection to the body. If your fists are clenched then you're probably angry. If you're smiling then you're probably feeling happy. Reading your own body language to figure out what you're feeling. What a novel thought. The book also mentions that Aspies are inclined to pick the strongest and only identify one emotion but that it was quite common to feel more than one thing at a time. Sometimes those feelings might even be in conflict with one another. *sigh* Bloody hell.

How messy. Ugly... Dirty! In messy situations I strongly prefer to isolate the strongest theme, understand if fully and work with it's influence on the situation. This is a valuable asset in my work as a computer programmer. I can quickly and easily filter out the most important issues my business users face and get straight to the problem to solve it succinctly and quickly. Apparently this is not a helpful approach when dealing with emotions.

I was recommended to write down my feelings, one by one if that was what was possible to start with. With time, growing understanding and self knowledge I hope I can write about more complex interplay of emotions but we must start somewhere. I may move fluidly between the past and present tense for reasons that I will write about another time. I hope you forgive me this strangeness and bare with me.

So as I read that section in bed this morning I noticed the following things: that my skin felt warm under the duvet and that the soft cotton of the bed linen was pleasant on my skin. I was drinking a warm black tea with honey that I'd made for us a short while earlier and after each delicious sip I'd savour the flavour on my tongue and the sensuous flow of the warm liquid down my throat. After each sip I tend to close my eyes and let out the tiniest little satisfied sigh, my breath hot from the tea and scented gently by the honey. I enjoyed the tea! I leaned on my pillow and hunched slightly over the book which was resting on my knees, my hands holding the hard cover protectively but firmly, taking care not to damage even the dust cover. My eyes were opened a little wider than normal as I drank in the pages of text, gulping them down like a thirsty child. I was interested in the books contents! The Husband interrupted my reading to talk to me about how we might spend the day together with friends. I strongly felt the attraction of the pages of the book and felt a slight sinking feeling in the middle of my chest while I spoke with him. There was tension in muscles on my forehead and I think about telling him that I'd rather be reading that talking to him but I don't say that. I was a little irritated to be distracted from the book to talk to my lovely man. I know that it's important to talk about the course of the day and that was an appropriate time to do it given the time it would take to eat breakfast, shower then depart for our friend's home.

As I write this entry tonight, I am guess I am curious and slightly mystified. Is that what one calls emotions?

Aspie Books!

2009-08-31T21:45:00.008+01:00

I'm still in the process of setting up a formal diagnosis for my condition. My health insurance company have requested my medical records from the NHS. In true bureaucratic form, the secretary put it in the in-tray which only got to the admin office middle of last week; now it's in the queue of admin requests and should be dealt with in the next 2 weeks. Once the insurers get the copies of my medical records, that will go into a queue for the underwriters to consider before... well you get the picture.

I'm not sitting idle in the mean time. The Husband and I have bought 6 Asperger books to read about the condition, helpful suggestions for assist couples in AS/NT relationships and so on. I read a quick chapter or two of The Complete Guide to Asperger Syndrome by Tony Attwood and Aspergers in Love by Maxine Aston but the one that really caught my attention is Solutions for Adults with Asperger Syndrome by Juanita Lovett. I'm half way through the Solutions for Adults book now and it's already proving interesting and very useful. My next post grows out of an idea I read in the book just last night. I should complete reading it by the next weekend, work permitting.

The other books in the purchase where Alone Together by Katrin Bentley, Asperger Syndrome and Longterm Relationships by Ashley Stanford and Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships by Dr Temple Grandin and Sean Barron (Google Books preview) although I haven't read any of these yet since I'm into Solutions for Adults. Once I get stuck into a book I find it really hard to read another. If I can drop a story part way through then it hadn't really caught my imagination and I'm unlikely to return to it. I was in the mood for fiction a few weeks ago and started reading Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton but it was slow going. I was a couple of chapters into it when the Aspie books arrived and I was immediately diverted to the new Aspie books. I may return to the story after reading some of the new books. *shrug* We'll see.

I think we have a nice balance of narrative, case study style texts as well as logically structured instructional texts; something from AS perspective and something from NT perspective so that we might have a better understanding of each other's point of view. Quite a lot of the literature, both online and in books, refer to Aspies and NTs having different cultures. Many of the problems and solutions discussed in a manner appropriate to discussing cultural differences and how people from two very different cultures might meet productively to their mutual enjoyment. I honestly don't know what to make of the perspective of cultural difference yet. I can't say I understand it so can neither speak for nor against it. I'll try to remember to comment about this in future when I have a more informed opinion.

The Husband had a bit of a giggle that he headed to the narrative books while I headed straight for the "instruction manuals for humans" as he likes to call them. Can't blame me for being methodical. Finally! Books that might explain how the weird people of this planet work. :-)

Eugenics

2009-08-26T13:22:00.004+01:00

Hans Asperger published his research into the syndrome that now bears his name during the late years of the Second World War, in Nazi occupied Austria. Since his paper identified the syndrome as being autistic in nature, he had to convince the Nazi authorities that the children weren't defective, simply that their brain configuration was different. The argument about different versus defective was relevant to Nazi policy given their stance on eugenics. Had the authorities decided that the children under his care were defective they would have been killed. Go neurodiversity!

I'm gay, from Jewish ancestry and I'm mildly autistic. Am I ever glad the war didn't go the other way. I wouldn't have stood a chance!

Taste of London Pavement

2009-08-25T21:43:00.006+01:00

On Monday last week I had a small crash on the way to work. It was a nice warm, dry sunny day and the new office building is a short 3 mile trip from home. I wore my protective jacket and helmet but thought I'd leave my gloves at home.

As I was filtering past a car on Duke Street Hill it suddenly turned right crashing into me. I didn't see him indicating to turn and wasn't sure why he'd stopped in the road since I don't remember there being any on-coming traffic. Whatever... Cars are normally stopped for one reason or another on that road and I've filtered past them safely for the last 3 years. Until that day when the bloke turned right without checking his mirror. Or his blind-spot.

I was only going about 15mph so it wasn't too bad. All it took was a knock from his car to put me off balance and make it a fall certain. My right hand and right knee took a good scraping but otherwise no one was hurt. The bloke was good about it and made sure I was OK. He wasn't too concerned about damage to his car or my bike, just that I was OK. As it turns out the only damage to his car was to his right hand wing mirror. No scratches or dents at all. According to the insurance assessor the only damage to my bike is to the tube that forms the handle bars and to the right hand protector. I was able to drive my bike home, the damage isn't too severe although I'm not riding it until I get the go-ahead to take it to the repair shop. If I can avoid the recovery cost (pretty sure that I can) then I'm hoping that the claim won't exceed my excess. This will be my second accident in my first year of having a full bike license, the first accident was when I slipped on the ice after the February snow fall.

Some builders completing the last phase of a building saw it happen and helped pick me up and get me and the bike safely out of the road. A couple of them watched my bike while the others took me in to their first aid room to clean me up and dress my wounds. I'm deeply thankful to them and it has really made me think very differently about builders. The uncouth stories about rough building sites have their place but under it all, many of them are downright great human beings. I'm deeply grateful to those guys for their help.

I'm dreading the insurance renewal in October. Watch this space. :-(

The Blindspot

2009-08-25T14:26:00.013+01:00

I arrived home shell shocked that day. The impact of reading about how other people process emotions in each other had overwhelmed me in a very surprising fashion. I was in the mood for some serious comfort eating so bought some crackers and a range of paté for The Husband and I to enjoy with some wine. I opened the conversation by asking how he interpretted the article's contents; how did he "experience other people's emotions"? What followed was quite simply amazing for me. He described a world I had never glimpsed where people sense one another physically, visually, audibly etc. and very importantly, sensing their emotional presence. In some cases feelings resonate between people; one senses a feeling from another person, then one reciprocates with a connected feeling which reinforces or supports what the first person felt.

Example: Bob walks into the room feeling quite angry. His friend Jane is concerned for Bob and asks him what has upset him. Bob has a short rant/whinge about how unfair it is that he got a parking ticket when the parking rules are so obscure. Jane also thinks that the parking rules are unfair and sympathises with Bob [Jane realises that Bob is upset and would like to be comforted]. Bob is still angry and his anger about the parking enforcement feels justified since Jane reinforced his judgement [Bob senses that Jane wants to comfort him] that the rules were obscure but Bob also feels supported by Jane's sympathy. Bob and Jane feel closer to each other to have shared a difficulty/been vulnerable and had a supportive/protective response that helped to moderate the difficulty. There is an emotional component to the conversation as much as there is a verbal conversation.

To be honest, I'd seen this sort of behaviour before and never quite understood it. To me the outcomes are logically and discretely defined. 1) Pay the fine or appeal it. 2) Learn how the parking works and maybe 3) campaign for the rules to be simplified. I had no idea why people might express their feelings and would interpret this sort of interchange as asking for procedural assistance because they are unsure how to proceed. It never struck me that they are asking for help dealing with the emotional impact of an event on them. My typical response confuses people and their confusion turns the situation awkward. I wonder what I've done wrong and the relationship becomes a bit more strained. As The Husband and I talk, we figure out that I'm completely missing the emotional content of each situation and the emotional impact of my words. I've never sensed another person's feelings at all. It had never occurred to me at all that other people might have this ability. *boggle*

As we talk about feelings in other people, contrasting our experiences with the other's, it strikes me that I've been missing something much more fundamental: what it means for other people to have feelings. I've heard people talk about their feelings and seen actors portray emotional roles in films, on stage and television so I know intellectually that people have feelings. (Uh, OK.) What I didn't understand, and this was a real doozy, is that my experience of my own emotions inside myself was happening independently of me in every other person. (What?! Really?) That's what it meant for them to have feelings. (WHAT???) This had never occurred to me, ever. It's so obvious and so utterly basic that it's not something anyone has ever talked about in my hearing. Not only were other people experiencing their own emotions, they could sense an emotional life in each other to which I am completely blind. Communication is as much about emotion and emotional intercourse as it is about writing, talking, dancing, eating, painting or any other activity that conveys meaning. (Me to TH: "so what do you call your species on the weird planet you're from?" :-)

I have only ever experienced my own feelings and I try to figure out other people much like I would figure out a puzzle. Not having any sense of other people's emotional presence meant that I didn't fully appreciate how powerful other people's emotions were and how that shaped every situation. To me, each person is like a black box with varied output responses from the same inputs. What goes on inside the computing machine that each person represents is totally opaque to me; always has been. This is my blindspot. Until that conversation with my lovely man, I had no concept of how other people might function inside and it has been tremendously helpful to talk with him about such fundamental things. Other people's emotions and intention are still extremely hard for me fathom. In light of understanding this difference we are able to explain most of the difficulties we have faced together. I understand, and can sympathise now, with those other poor 6 year olds on the play ground at school, many years ago, who were baffled by the weird kid who knew the names of all the planets and could easily solve math problems that might challenge a 9 year old. All they wanted to do was bounce a ball together or play kissing catchers.

The wine helped lubricate the conversation - not that we were ever drunk (one bottle between us over the course of the evening.) It was very draining emotionally, like a 4 hour therapy session that in many ways got right to the bottom of one of the most fundamental problems I've faced in my life. We talked about how we miscommunicated in the past- him expecting me to understand his state of mind and reciprocate in a sympathetic way (which I do inconsistently) - and me wondering what on earth he was really after. Wondering if he really does love me. Feeling isolated and constantly alone, even in company. Wondering if my parents really loved me. Thinking sometimes that my parents hated me. Wondering if anyone had ever loved me and if at all I was lovable. So much confusion with everyone I've ever met and misunderstood. So much rejection and feeling broken that can be put in context. An understanding on which I can rebuild my life and maybe, just maybe live a happy life. A life in which I am loved, understand what love looks like and accept that I am actually loved.

For the very first time ever in my 34 years, I feel that long term happiness is possible.

The Clincher

2009-08-20T00:37:00.024+01:00

Having had my curiosity piqued about Aspergers, I found a list of behaviours and typical problems that people with the syndrome have. Many of the behaviours and problems noted match mine exactly (my father, uncle and grandmother too!) so I start to look into it more closely. Like many internet journeys, mine started with the Wikipedia entry for Aspergers.

That article mentioned a whole range of strange clinical stuff about lacking demonstrated empathy, only understanding other people's emotions on an intellectual level which frankly sounded like bunkum. I'm a nice person who likes to care for others and I know when people are angry/sad etc. (the shouting and tears are the most obvious clues...) so maybe I didn't have this strange syndrome, regardless of how well of my many past and present behaviours match its description.

Still I continued to browse the web to read more about the condition. Most of the web's content starts with a short history of Hans Asperger (pictured opposite), the medical professional who first identified the autistic but not debilitating traits that occurred in four children in his practice. This got boring quickly because there's only so many times one can read the same historical lead in. What I needed were facts, proper descriptions from an Aspie's point of view, not clinical stuff that doesn't make sense with a eulogy for an introduction.

That was when I came across an article Social Behaviour Starts with Social Thought on the Autism Support Network that described a course of cognative behavioural therapy that teaches social thinking to children and adults with Aspergers. Now we were getting to the meat of it. What was wrong with Aspies and how do the clinical establishment suggest treating them. If anything I thought I might be able to recognise something from this content that might confirm or disprove in my mind whether this condition was relevant to me. Boy oh boy. Was I right.

The article starts out talking about social situations and how people sense one another's feelings in an automatic way (really?) especially when they share a space (WHAT?) That just but standing in an elevator together people have some sense of what the other person is feeling; with familiarity one might sense more of their feelings etc. but even strangers will have some sense of the other's emotions. That made me feel quite uncomfortable. That definitely has never happened to me. The idea that just by standing in a room with others in the past has made them feel things about me and build a picture of what I was feeling without asking me or talking to me made me feel a bit violated, like the privacy of my thoughts was routinely disrespected by everyone I had ever met.

The article goes on to speak about how most people have a good idea of the emotional effect of their words and actions and that they will consider the emotional impact of what they're doing as much as the intellectual or functional content of their communication. *boggle* (Really?) I suppose I kind of know that and will engineer my written business communication more carefully than other situations. No, wait, that's not quite it. I don't consider the emotional effect of the communcation on my audience - I consider their stated and implied business interests and how what I propose aligns with or challenges their interests, not their emotions. Hmm. Very strange. So most people just sense one another's feelings without thinking about it? That's just bizarre!

As I read further my sense of disquiet grew until I couldn't take it anymore. The article had expanded the social example to consider a whole classroom full of 30 people, where each person has, to a greater or lesser degree, a sense of how each other person in the class feels about them; how the other people in the class feels about each other person as well as a sense of the emotional effect of the group dynamic. As I read this sentence I was wracked by a wave of nausea. I locked my computer console without thinking about it and physically pushed myself about a foot away from my desk and covered my eyes with my hands. Mentally I made a note of where the bin near my desk was in case I had to be sick.

--

After about 2 minutes I had calmed down enough to leave my desk. I left the building to take a walk around the neighbourhood. I did a spot of grocery shopping. I called The Husband to tell him about the article and ask what he thought about it. To see whether it is the fanciful ravings of some delusional fool or whether any of the article's contents were familiar to him. As you might expect, dear reader, he verified that he does in fact have this automatic sense of the feelings of other people around him and feelings for me in particular, even when I'm not with him. He thought this was quite natural and expected that everyone was like this, including me. *sigh* Oh my. Whatever does this mean? I could not bear to return to my workstation and after avoiding it for the rest of that afternoon, I headed home to The Husband and to the deepest, longest and most meaningful discussion I have ever had with another human being in my entire life.

Authorising the Diagnosis

2009-08-17T23:30:00.005+01:00

SW: "Hello PruHealth, I'd like to get a claim approved. I've been referred for psychiatric evaluation."
Pru: "Hello Wobin. Who referred you and what is the referral for?"
SW: "I was referred by my GP. I'll spell the condition for you using the Nato Phonetic alphabet. Are you familiar with it?"
Pru: "Uhh.. the what?"
SW: "I'll say Alpha Sierra and you write down A S. Understand?"
Pru: "Oh right, yes. Please go ahead."
SW: "Alpha Sierra, Papa Echo, Romeo Golf, Echo Romeo - Syndrome. Did you get that."
Pru: "Yes thank you. One moment while I check this with one of our underwriters. I'll put you on hold. Is that OK?"
SW: "That's fine. Thank you."

<da da dada dah. dee da dee dada dat dat dada dah>

Pru: "Hello Wobin. We have on file that you're being treated for depression. When did you start that treatment?"
SW: "I started the talking therapy about 14 months ago."
Pru: "Hmm, well you started your policy with us 11 months ago and we don't cover pre-existing conditions so we won't cover this claim."
SW: "I understand that and I cover the cost of the therapy myself. This condition is not as a result of the depression. In fact, if I get proper treatment for this condition there's a good chance I won't need treatment for the depression any longer."
Pru: "Hmm... Let me check that with the underwriter. I'll just put you on hold again, OK?"
SW: "Please go ahead. Thank you."

<da da dada dah. dee da dee dada dat dat dada dah>

Pru: "Hello sir."
SW: "Hello again."
Pru: "The underwriter has agreed that we can consider your claim but we'll need 5 years of medical history from your GP before we'll authorise the claim for your... uhh... Asparagus... condition. Is that OK?"

(quiet internal sigh as I restrain myself from correcting her)

SW: "Yes, that's fine."
Pru: "Shall I send you the forms by post or email."
SW: "Email please. That's the fastest."
Pru: "They should be on their way to you shortly. Please fill out those forms to authorise us to access your medical records. Is there anything else I can help you with."
SW: "That's all thank you."
Pru: "Thanks for calling us today. Goodbye!"
SW: "Goodbye."

<click>

Qualities of my Difference

2009-08-15T21:54:00.005+01:00

This past week has been the singular most amazing week of my life. I say that without any hesitation and know that I can say it without exaggeration. All of my past difficulties are put into relevant context; the largest part of my reasons for unhappiness are quantified; a reasonable path to a happy future appears obtainable. I could never have dared hope that such a thing was possible.

My childhood before school was a happy one, I was a very playful child. I was also a very clumsy child, frequently injuring myself. Within 6 months of my second birthday I fell against the edge of a table (2 stiches), fell and cracked a front tooth (started lisping as a result) then fell against another piece of furniture and split my forehead open (8 stiches). Every other week my mum would be driving me to the emergency department of our local hospital for one reason or another. Aged 9 I broke my right arm falling out of a tree then later aged 11 again while playing marbles. Those weren't too serious, just greenstick fractures. The real biggy was when I broke my left (radius bone) good & proper aged 13. There were daily scrapes and bruises which mum would always dutifully clean up and check that I was alright. In mum's words: "If there were 300 children on a field and 1 had an accident and hurt themselves, it would be Wobin." I was just thought to be accident-prone.

Food was always a strange issue for young Wobin. My parents found it completely impossible to get me to eat red meat unless it was minced. I'd spit it out and say it felt strange on my tongue. Likewise cooked carrot. I would meticulously pick the cooked carrot out of the minced stew and push it one side of my plate, happily eating the raw carrot which dad cut up just for me. Sauces were a no-no. I did think my parents' fondness for salad dressing quite bizarre. Dad is an excellent chef and mom is a great cook too so food at home was a gourmet experience. Eating out was a strange experience for my parents. We would sometimes meet my uncle and aunt at the local Pizza Hut for a bit of family socialising. Mum and dad thought it odd that the first 5 or so times I ordered exactly the same pizza toppings. Despite their cajoling I just wouldn't consider any other choice. If I was out shopping with mum near this restaurant and she asked if I'd like to get something to eat, it was always Pizza Hut and always that same choice of pizza. Some years later when I was about 11, dad had to work far from home and my older brother had moved out of home so mum got a part time job. Some nights she'd offer to buy us a takeout dinner and would hopefully offer me a choice several nice restaurants she could go buy at. My answer was always Kentucky Fried Chicken. No amount of cajoling would change that and just buying something else would mean I'd not eat it. Mum also remembers me being prone to raging tantrums. As a very young child if I was learning something and couldn't do the task as fast as I mind was working I would get into screaming fits of frustration. Hmm... My poor parents.

Entering primary school was the start of my deep unhappiness. I never integrated with the other children. I found making friends my own age nearly impossible for no reason I could fathom. I liked factual things, knowing the name of all the planets aged 5. Knowing how the strange starsign system allegedly worked because it based on the planets and their coincidental orbits. I was given my first electronic toy aged 4. It was educational in nature, giving arithmetic tests of addition and multiplication up to about the 12 times table. My brother clearly recalls me being totally absorbed with the toy for hours at a time. Eventually after some months, near to my 5th birthday, I was able to complete all of the hardest puzzles on it perfectly. I had no idea that this made me different. I was ostracised and bullied mercilessly when I started school. I would regularly fake illness to avoid being sent to the concentration camp that was the Jewish school my father valued so highly. The other children were my tormentors and the teachers were the camp guards. No one understood me including my parents and I came to suspect that everyone hated me, including my parents. It was an awful time. My love of routine and organisation just served as another way for me to seem different and and justify their hatred of me.

My teen years were a strange progression from primary school hell to a withdrawn and suspicious isolation. For the first few years of highschool, the work was interesting and I wasn't bullied for a while, although it didn't take long for the kids to figure out that I was different in some important way that kept me an outsider. First year of highschool I walked away with prizes for being top of the class in half my subjects and my lowest mark was an 80%. We moved city half way through the second year of high school and my gradual sexual awaking as a gay teen hit a massive speed bump. At the next school I met The Boy I would have a crush on for the next 3 and a half years. I obsessed about him in more depth than I think is explained by adolescent crushes. I eventually managed to talk to him about it a month or two before the end of school and he was really nice and understanding, but no, he wasn't going to put out. :-P

The day after I arrived at the new school, there was a test on subject matter I hadn't been taught yet. I answered the questions as best I could but failed the test miserably. Going from top of clas to a failure through no fault of my own was also crushing and unfair. I felt that the system was rubbish so I gave up on all academic effort. I took my foot right off the pedal and did as little homework as necessary. 15 minutes listening in class was usually sufficient for me to get what the teacher had to impart after which I would tune out and fantasize and obsess about The Boy. I felt completely out of touch with the world through high school and only managed to make 1 friend the whole time. The loneliness was crushing but not knowing what was wrong with me made it worse. I came to think I was defective in some subtle and indescribable way that was obvious to everyone else and made it OK for them to treat me like dirt.

At university I managed to make a few more friends (seven!!!) but I was still withdrawn and suspicious about people. My adult life has not been easy in social terms. I find it difficult to keep contact with people who are trying to be my friends and I've accepted that I would always feel lonely. Who knew that these were some of the defining characteristics of my condition? I would never have guessed that these things together match so closely with a typical description of people like me. Who knew that there were people like me?

This has come as a huge shock but also a huge relief. I am different but I am not broken. There are other people like me. Knowing about my difference gives me a chance to be happy. It shows me a way forward that I could never have guessed existed. Enumerating these facts about my tortured youth is my way of making peace with the past. In the next few posts I will explore my discovery with you further but this was important to me. Now I understand why it was so hard for the other children to accept me. My parents didn't hate me (far from it) but I just couldn't see.

Bwave Sir Wobin

2009-07-11T15:55:00.002+01:00

It's quite wonderful the clips one can find on YouTube. I needed a giggle and found this gem. :-)

Honest Work

2009-07-09T23:38:00.004+01:00

I was quite titillated the other day to read about the academic study of fertility risk to elite cycling athletes. So let's get this straight: someone got paid to study the sexual function of athletes with fabulous legs? All in the name of science?

Where do I sign up? I'm sure my skills in the sample collection service shall not be wasted. I might charge extra for fluffing. Then again, I might not. :->

Brought to you from the Department of How The Fuck Did They Get Funding For That?

Wobin and the Gweeks

2009-07-09T20:44:00.010+01:00

As I mentioned in my previous post, I've had a wonderful week's holiday. Not in sunny Mediterranean Gweace but around Devon and Cornwall with The Husband and a couple of friends. As you can see from my photo to the right, we did indeed visit the small Cornish town of Gweek. :-)

Each day we would set our satellite navigation system with the day's destination and a few diversions and then be on our merry way down the occasional A-road, lots of B-roads and a whole lot of crazy single lane country roads with narrow sidings. Since there were four of us we travelled by car but I longed to be taking in the country roads on dragonback. Just as soon as I have a free weekend, I'm heading down to the New Forest for some fun on my bike.

The highlights of the trip for me were walking through the New Forest; cream tea in the village of Abbotsbury in Dorset, which seems unspoiled by time; the relaxing lunch in Cadgwith cove and the brief but enjoyable stop in Padstow. St Ives was a tacky, commercial dive compared with smaller charming Padstow. We had a couple of days in St Austell to visit The Lost Gardens of Heligan, the Eden Project and picturesque Mevagissey which our friend G from Los Angeles had trouble pronouncing. The architecture and construction of the domes at the Eden Project were fascinating but the exhibits and plant life inside were quite dull. I'm quite stuffed with clotted cream now. I'm intollerant of dairy products but can get by if I use Lactaid. Honestly, it was clotted cream with scones, clotted cream icecream, clotted cream fudge... The Husband thought it was only a matter of time before we found a dessert that was basically just deep fried clotted cream! It's a relief to be back to my regular diet. Travelling is quite hard on my digestion.

Mostly, I just needed time away from my cares to enjoy with The Husband. I return having experienced the bliss of three consecutive nights sleeping for 8 hours each night. Having a lovely husband to cuddle to sleep each night really helped and toward the end of the holiday we were both missing our nest at home. We draw so much comfort from being in our own space and you can tell that it's a good time to end the holiday when you're missing home.

Must do more small breaks in future.

Passing Episode

2009-07-09T20:22:00.002+01:00

The past few months have been quite horrible. I'm coming out of a rather protracted period of depression. Work was very stressful as 9 months of project work culminated in version 1 release; lots of weekend work. Time was running short for me to finish my master's thesis but I got it to first draft in time. It all drew together pretty much at the same time and ended with a bang.

The bang being my first proper holiday in almost a year. A week of very little responsibility walking in beautiful forests, along country lanes and visiting quaint, out of the way Cornish fishing villages to eat gorgeous food.

Regular programming shall resume shortly. :-)

Obsession

2009-05-25T02:35:00.011+01:00

A lot of my friends and I have iPhone 3Gs. We share tips and game recommendations and try not too be too snobbish about those in the clan who have yet to get one. Just over a month ago, my friend A recommended Flight Control which is truly excellent. It held the #1 downloaded app spot on the Apple App Store charts for ages; a well deserved accolade. The game simulates being a flight controller where one must give aircraft landing instructions and the game ends when two aircraft collide. There is a large runway for the larger and faster aircraft, a small runway for the smaller and slower planes and a heliport. Aircraft periodically appear from the edge of the screen, then one touches them and traces a path with a finger on the screen to give them safe landing instructions.

When A introduced us to the game he also issued a challenge of "52 is the score to beat." That's 52 planes landed. The game is really addictive and I enjoyed playing it - perhaps a little too much. The iPhone is a great game platform in addition to being a phone and music player. It's natural to carry it with you everywhere and many of the games are something one can enjoy playing for 5 or 10 minutes during a break. It's much more natural to carry everywhere than carrying a Sony PSP or Nintendo DS in addition to one's phone.

When I eventually get a high score to beat A's, he replied with a smug "oh, I've got 82 now." *grr* That's when I started to feel really competitive. Over the last 2 weeks I've grown comfortable with the rhythm of the game. The waves of new aircraft arriving only get more intense until it levels out at around 80. Thereafter the pace stays at the same level and one need only keep to a tried and trusty strategy. About 3 weeks ago I managed to get a high score of 108. I mentioned it to A but he was silent; no response at all. :-) Over the last week my games have gotten longer and longer with high scores going from 255 to 347 to 525 to 744 and as of today 1466. Thank heavens it's easy to take screenshots on the phone so that I can prove my high scores to the unbelievers - all of whom are sceptical of scores over 100. When I announced my high score in the 700s, A finally conceded defeat.

It's a particularly masculine pleasure to vanquish a challenger; claiming some territory and basking in the glow of admiration for being top dog for a while. Victory is very sweet, even in an inconsequential competition like this. Yet when I reflect on my behaviour and feelings I wonder if I feel in some way small and need to prove myself? To assert some sense of masculine pride in battle. That logically implies that I feel inadequate and competition is an outlet for addressing this. Hmm..

On the upside, I've tired of the competitive element of the game and find the intense concentration of the game very soothing. I become completely immersed in the present and find myself in a meditative concentration state. Very soothing indeed. I'd probably get more benefit from actually meditating though.

Mon Milieu

2009-04-24T22:22:00.007+01:00

I live in an old and green part of the city. It's convenient to get to work, there's shops nearby and several large parks and leafy roads. A few years ago the council made a point of peppering the borough with daffodils which make springtime that little bit more special. And this spring is already quite marvellous.

We enjoy a spacious apartment which The Husband and I bought about seven years ago. We walked into the main living area when it was still a building site and decided this was where we would make our nest. Like any place it has it's pros and cons but we find living here mostly positive. I have moved house/city/country so many times in my life; the seven years we've lived here are the longest that I've ever lived in one place. The Husband jokes that just about two years into living somewhere I'd start to get itchy feet. This is where I have put down roots after the longest time in exile.

I've been cycling to and from work more than I've been riding my motorcycle. I really don't like doing cardio exercises at the gym and this gives me the cardio exercise I need for my free weight sessions to be that much more meaningful. Not to mention the belly fat is melting away as the days go by. The Husband's comments are quite positive. I must endure more and more frequent inspections from my handsome fur inspector. He's been quite diligent in the persuit of his duties. :-> Today I cycled to work (6 miles), cycled to the gym (5 miles), nice heavy leg workout such that my legs were trembling as I changed after the workout, and finally cycled home (a final 3 miles).

When I got home I was fiercely hungry and was really in the mood to eat a hamburger. Our local pub makes the best hamburgers in London and tonight the chef was in top form. The tastiest bacon and egg hamburger with chips that I've had there in a long time. A glass of a South African shiraz to chase it down - pure deliciousness. About 1250 calories for the meal which blew the calorie budget completely out of the water but heck, I wanted it, I exercised hard and it was easily a third to a half protein which is a good proportion. It wasn't the most civilised meal since it was late when we got to the pub. We ordered our food and drink and had a bit of a chat with the staff as we always do. They recognise us as local and we've known the rhythms of the place for quite some time, which is nice. It's one of those small features of fitting in that is still novel to me.

When the food arrived, it was carnage. A hamburger is finger food after all but I attacked it like a pride of lions feasting on a freshly killed antelope. Carnage. Most satisfying to know one's desires and to have the means to satisfy them. The burger was cooked to medium perfection and delicately spiced. The texture of the ground meat was slightly firm but easily chewed. I seldom appreciate beef in any form other than ground or minced, something about the texture of unground beef has put me off since I was a very young child. The chips weren't too oily and he potato inside the deep fried chip was light and fluffy, almost as if it had turned into mash inside the chip during the cooking process. The bacon and egg were reasonably strong flavours but as I got into the burger my body went into calorie absorption mode and while I didn't rush the meal to the point of rudeness, it did go down faster than my usual leisurely pace.

I'm learning to recognise my desire, to feel it, to express it and be at home with this emotion that I have suppressed for a very long time. It's not just about sexual desire. It's about all desire and it's one more way in which I'm making more contact with the world. Tonight was about food.

May you all have food as delicious as this. May your desires be as sensuous and quickly fulfilled. Good night sweet world.

Interlude with The Husband

2009-04-06T22:35:00.002+01:00

Me: "How often do sexy hairy muscled men throw themselves at you?"
TH: "Not often enough!"
Me: "Oh, I expected to hear that it was every day."
TH: "Exactly. Not often enough! :-)"

Banks

2009-04-01T22:48:00.001+01:00

"I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."

- Thomas Jefferson

compfight.com

2009-03-19T13:49:00.005Z

A friend recently tweeted this lovely site that searches Flickr tags and text to show photo results. Suddenly browsing for fresh soft porn got a whole lot easier. :-)

Don't'cha just love technology?

The Dreaded Lurgi

2009-03-19T13:18:00.005Z

Alas! Alack! O woe! I have become an incubus of viral plague. Sniffles, aching... the works. Thus I have a moment to update my blog and consider writing a more detailed response to SilverRRCloud's post about male sexuality.

On the up-side, I feel totally justified pursuing a program of relentless self-medication. It's Night Nurse and chicken soup with matza balls, served separately. Our friends P&M had their civil union some months ago and have started making use of an ice cream maker that was a wedding present. P suggested that one of his initial confections might be Night Nurse sorbet which at the time sounded revolting but since my taste buds are on strike I might just give it a go.

Note to self: Do not reread this post post-lurgi infestation.

iPhone Fail

2009-03-19T13:13:00.004Z

Hmm... A voicemail message from before I was born.

If denizens from the spirit world are trying to send me stock tips, you're a bit late. Messages from the future rate far higher on the coolness metre.

Gaga for The Boy

2009-03-08T11:49:00.014Z

It's been a long time since this last happened to me. Yesterday night we went to an acquaintance's birthday party at a pub near London Bridge. The Boy behind the bar who came to serve us was literally stunning. He looks like he's stepped right out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue to addle my brain and stir my loins. He looks into my eyes and asks in that endearing soft, lilting southern Irish accent what we're drinking. The clutch on the engine of my mind engages fully and all intellectual thought and ability to discriminate retracts. I'm focused totally on him, the room has a soft hue and the loudish music seems unimportant. I'm spellbound, standing in front of this humble but heavenly agent watching myself jabber like an idiot: "I'll have an um... ah.. drink, please. Ahhh, Guiness maybe, I think. Yes... Guiness." He asks me if that's all and I half turn to The Husband and ask what he's drinking, without actually loosing eye contact with The Boy. "No, he'll also drink, um... something. He wants a drink too. What do you want to drink TH?" I can kind of feel my eyes are wide open and I'm probably a bit slack jawed. Nice. Real attractive me. Just as soon as I regain control of my faculties I'm sure I'll cringe.

A faint smile touches The Boy's lips as he realises the effect he's having on me but he takes our order professionally and moves on to the next customer. It's only when he looks away and moves a couple of paces I come to my senses, like waking from a dream. His spell over me breaks.

One, two, three... *cringe*

Must go back and order something else. "Something to eat TH? Oh don't worry, you take it easy and keep this table for us. I'll go order at the bar." :-)

Back in the Saddle

2009-03-08T10:01:00.005Z

I got my bike back Thursday of last week and I've had the whole week to enjoy riding again. So far almost all my riding has been in the city or down to see my brother, still urban riding. I've had the bike for 6 months now and am getting more confident and relaxed with it. I've ridden it long enough that the handling is almost subconscious - second nature. I'm hoping to have some time and money this year to attend some of the off-road courses in Wales. I can't wait to use my dragon's wings. :-)

One of my mates at work has just successfully completed his Direct Access course and is now shopping around for a proper bike (i.e. bigger than the 125cc one must learn on.) His dad has always bought BMW bikes and he's seriously considering several in the BMW range along with the Honda Hornet and a few other city bikes. He's leaning toward a naked street racer bike to be released in the next few months. My taste tends toward bikes with some faring and the enduro style with it's natural and comfortable seating posture. He's just over 30 and about to get married so I suspect the desire for the wild looking overpowered street racer comes partly from him letting many other freedoms go.

Apparently the dealer told him that as of next year BMW will replace the current control system with one that is standard on just about all other bikes, namely all indicator functions are at the left hand control. I love my dragon but that improvement alone would convince me to upgrade!

Sleeping Soundly

2009-03-02T07:24:00.004Z

Our bed is a bit uncomfortable at the moment. The new slats for our bed arrive soon but in the mean time it creaks loudly with the slightest movement. When either of The Husband or I turn over in our sleep, the bed protests loudly, frequently waking us both up. With this sorry state of affairs I've taken to using a sleeping tablet to help me sleep more soundly.

So you can tell I was really horny when I woke up in the middle of the night cuddled up close to my man, equipment at the ready. One does so enjoy the vigorous performance of one's husbandly duties late at night. Did I say vigorous? Our bed added sound effects something between sawing wood in a timber mill and a BDSM session with piglets. Heaven only knows what the neighbours thought!

Effects of the sleeping pill and post Husband-shag bliss resulted in very sound sleep. Well recommended. Interesting bed for sound effects optional.

Dragon Aid

2009-02-23T22:25:00.002Z

Insurance quote finally approved and the garage have ordered the necessary parts from Germany. "Up to" 5 days for the parts to arrive and then the repair commences. Only one more dragonless week. *sigh*

Must take better care of my dragon when she returns.

Telepathy

2009-02-23T21:54:00.003Z

The Husband and I have been together many years. About three or four times a year we have moments of pure telepathy when we just know the other's thoughts and desires without prior discussion. Pure telepathy.

Sometimes it happens when I'm shopping and I will suddenly know that he wants a particular item. I buy it and take it home with the rest of the shopping and he'll say "oh, after you left I thought to ask you to buy ______" at which point I hand it to him. :-) It's never a two way process, it's one or the other of us just knowing the other's thoughts and feelings. The most recent episode also involves groceries. We'd discussed buying some microwave meals without discussing what type of food specifically. When I got back from the shop after gym, I told him what I bought and he smiled and said he knew that was exactly what I bought and listed the ingredients. We'd discussed our weekly meal plan before I left but I couldn't know what the store had which we'd find appealing so I said I'd decide while shopping. Funny.

At other times, despite knowing each other so well and having moments of telepathy, we misinterpret unspoken gestures. Tonight we had a small hors d'oevre of chopped liver on a rice cake. I had a small fragment of rice cake that I wanted more liver on so I hand it to him silently expecting it to be lovingly spread with more topping. Instead he pops my last bit of rice cake in his mouth. All gone!

I got to tease him that he gobbled up my last bit of hors d'oevre. Much pouting and protestation of innocence. He's so guileless sometimes.

Back to Gym

2009-02-07T11:31:00.003Z

I've not been regularly at the gym over the last 3 months for one reason or another. Mostly extreme stress from an issue with my building resident company that I'll go into in another blog post. It's an extraordinary situation. I got sick quite frequently and have now returned to health. Now for the return to a regular gym schedule!

This is the first week back and my body is aching after all the weight work. Over 3 months the weight I can lift has decreased by about a quarter and my cardio fitness is much lower. I'm not phased. I started from a much lower fitness level and I'll be back on form in a few months. The first week back I thought I'd exercise on my own and next week I'm restarting PT sessions with my gorgeous Mediteranean trainer. He's really easy to get on with and we banter about naughty stuff frequently during sessions which is quite refreshing. He's the first straight guy who I can banter with and not put on an act with. He's also merciless with pushing me way beyond what I think my exercise limits are so I get great results when we work together.

After my gym session on Friday I was in a hurry to get home to The Husband so I strolled past the sauna on the way to the shower. Friday evenings is quite a busy time and it looked like desire was thick as steam in the air. Sure enough I recognised a few regular faces including Irish Stew who returned a longing gaze. I didn't stop for him this time, just showered and hurried home to my man. He's been a total horn dog after the week apart when he went on holiday to visit his family so we kinda fell into bed right after I got home. He was hors d'oevres but the main course was Chinese takeaway. Definitely a case of the starter outshining the mains.

The Disaster Building

2009-02-07T00:14:00.006Z

I currently work in the back-office of the bank and there is a strict hierarchy in the bank. The closer to the front office and clients you are, the better the facilities. My current contract is so far back into the back office that it's like a fairytale realm of the trolls living under a dank bridge.

The dank bridge in question is a disaster recovery site. It is meant only to be pressed into service when another building in our city has been destroyed or severely debilitated. The bank ran out of space and decided to station some back office staff there. It clearly hasn't been maintained properly for many years. It has no kitchen facilities, the double firedoors blow in the breeze of positive air pressure from the office environment whenever you move through the doors so the magnetic security lock almost never engages. We are titillated with the possibility of being moved to newly commissioned buildings later in the year but I must say, the building is more a disaster site than a disaster recovery site! This is definitely the worst working environment I have been placed and I am seriously considering not renewing my contract with this bank.

Below are pictures from the bathrooms today. I hold with the saying that you can judge people by how well they maintain their bathrooms.

Broken Wing

2009-02-05T17:17:00.002Z

With all the snow and ice of Monday and Tuesday, I've kept my dragon safely stabled. On my way home on Tuesday night I noticed that most of the roads were quite usable and decided that it was probably safe to use my motorcycle. Wednesday mornings I see my therapist before work and by bike is the quickest and most comfortable way to get there so I carefully navigated the little bit of ice outside my building and headed out for the day. I drove much more slowly and carefully and most of the day past uneventfully - got to The Therapist, got to work, got to gym - no problems.

The road where I normally park outside gym was heavily iced up still and I was quite nervous. Still I managed to park up and had my gym work out. After gym I walked to my bike and started her up, made a very careful circle to go back down the road away from gym then on toward the main road. As I'm about to traverse the last heavily iced road I did think to myself, go around this to be safe but my confidence was still high. I'd navigated the rest of the ice well so far, after all. So it was that on the last stretch of iced road that I traversed that day, 3 metres before the end of the ice on that last road that my wheels slipped out form under me with no resistance at all and I crashed my beautiful 4 month old dragon. :-(((

I was only doing 10mph or 15 mph and there was no one else involved. It looked like there was only a few scratches to the off-road hand guards from the fall so I judged that it was fine to drive home. On the drive home it became obvious that the front wheel was definitely bent at a different angle to the handlebars and at slow speeds there was a new squeaking sound. Right after I parked up at home I looked over the front wheel and it's bent good and properly out of shape. I have only myself to blame. Should have taken a safer road when I saw all the ice or just left my dragon safely in the stable.

So this is what experience feels like - school of hard knocks styleeee.

Brontopenis

2009-02-03T22:44:00.004Z

One of the things I do is give cute dinosaur sounding names to the people I really like and care for. Not sure how this came about but it amuses me and once they realise I'm not trying to insult them by hinting that they're fat or deformed (some people are so sensitive!) it gets a giggle out of them. The Husband's dinosaur name is Snoekasaurus Rex (building on a pet name we have for each other) and his sister's name is simply her name with a -saurus suffix. It's just perfect for her. There is no other name that fits her quite so well.

The Husband was made redundant quite suddenly a couple of weeks ago and so is between jobs. With the nice payout he got by way of compromise agreement, leave pay and payment in lieu of notice period, he decided to fly out to South Africa to visit his family. My project commitments prevented me from joining him. It has been a very useful parting since we've missed each other terribly. In all of the nearly thirteen years together there are only three occations that we've been apart for any significant amount of time. In some respect I think I was a bit sick of having him around so much and - forgive me these clichés - familiarity bred contempt. With him gone I realise how central he is to my life and my daily rhythms. I deeply miss being able to touch him, kiss him and cuddle morning and night. Our home is so quiet without him in it, only my sounds to hear. Loneliness has made the heart grow fonder and I cannot wait for his return.

Tonight I had dinner and caught up with a Saffa friend who lives in our neighbourhood. We went down to our local which serves great food, had a meal, avoided getting caught up in quiz night and spent a couple of hours chatting. It was many months ago when last we (The Husband, him and I) caught up, got drunk then went back to our place for a threesome. This lovely boy is such a catch - he really should be married off to some gorgious deserving man but until that happy day he's definitely fair game. Alas, tonight followed a similar pattern after the pub (sadly less The Husband) and we had good sex. Last time the three of us kept going for three hours (a surprize to be sure, 30 minutes is my average) and he really is a champion fuck! Not really a cuddler apres le petit mort, a bit more chit-chat, shower then off home. Satisfying in a completely carnal way but light on follow through after the main event. That sounds like a gymnastics competition rating: "flawless technique during the routine but a little shaky on the dismount. 7.5" I do so look forward to The Husband returning. To fill that special place in my life and heart but also to the vigourous performance of his husbandly duties. :-) In no small way, my world revolves around him and our week apart has given me time to reflect and to appreciate that connection.

I have decided that our friend's dinosaur name shall be The Brontopenis. I'm sure you can guess why.

Half-breed Syndrome

2009-01-27T11:31:00.008Z

I was reading a mixed race gay guy's blog recently and he mentioned how different the culture is in each racial branch of his extended family. This got me thinking about my own heritage. Mum was raised as a protestant Christian in Scotland and dad is an Eskenazi Jew born in South Africa. So what does that make me?

I was born in a country that no longer exists. In the many places that we lived after leaving Rhodesia, I wasn't South African enough for the locals. I was too Jewish for the goyim. I wasn't Jewish enough for the Jews! In some important way from the age of 5 until 26 I didn't fit in and got used to feeling like a perpetual outsider. The other people around me had some durable connection to the place they lived and the close proximity of an extended family. They had a broad support base of people similar to them by race or religion or both. In many instances, I shared only a skin colour and language with the people around me. Always the barriers between us felt much higher than any common feature that might serve to bring us together.

I think I suffer from half-breed syndrome. Where I have now lived in the UK for the last 8 years, is where I have felt most at home. It's not perfect but I see people trying to fix the problems. This is where I have rediscovered hope. This is where I want to live.

Homeless

2008-12-29T20:43:00.008Z

I was age 5 the last time I truly felt at home. That was when we lived in Bulawayo, Rhodesia, and were part of the Jewish community there. My brother and I went to a Jewish school, I had Jewish friends, my family kept a kosher home and we attended Shabbat ceremonies at the Shul with everyone else. Attendance for adults seemed to mean wearing a Kippah, occationally also a soft and silky white scarf with beautiful Hebrew calligraphy on it (a Tallis), even more rarely also a weird leather contraption with boxes and long stringy bits (Tefillin) and speaking the same Hebrew prayers week after week from the Siddur. Attendance for my 5 year old buddies and I meant wearing a Kippah and running around playing games and squealing with fun; all well and good outside the Shul but one got shushed then marched outside for squealing inside during prayers. To the right is a picture of our lovely Bulowayo Shul before it was burned down. This picture is curtesy of the Zimbabwe Jewish Community. I learned of its destruction through writing this post.

It made the adults particularly happy for each of us to put in some face time for 5 minutes when we needed a break from running around. We'd go and sit quietly and respectfully next to one parent. It was an Orthodox Shul so mum sat upstairs with the other ladies and dad sat downstairs with the other men nearer to the Bimah and the heavy velvet curtain behind which the Torah scrolls where kept. I was a boy so I had to go sit with dad downstairs during rest breaks. The weather was always balmy and being Jewish was a blast. After Shul we'd go for dinner at another family's home and eat Kichel, Challah, chopped liver, pickled herring, gefilte fish and other fantastic Jewish foods.

Then my country went away. Rhodesia was no longer. It was going to be called Zimbabwe now and we all had to leave. It happened suddenly to my 5 year old self. Perhaps my parents planned for some time but the disclosure to me came about a week before our departure from home. I was going to loose my friends, my home, my country, the long hot balmy days, Friday nights at the Shul running around and most importantly, I was going to loose my nanny, Otilia Moyo. Mum worked so almost all of the time I was under Otilia's care. She made my food, washed my knee when I scraped it and hugged me better. She also endured the terror of my crazy Siamese cat Woozle bringing live snakes he has caught into my bedroom to eat. I was awful proud of my Woozle for catching big nasty snakes and lizards, less so the birds and I felt he was entitled to praise and to eat his catch in the glow of admiration. Not only did poor Ma Moyo[1] have to endure the occasional presence of live, if disabled, snakes in my room but she also had to clean up the leftovers!

All of it was left behind in a flash. Gone forever was my home, my country, Ma Moyo, my friends and my religion. The place we went to had none of these things. Home is where the heart is. It's where you make yourself at home but I have never known another home since then. My heart was left behind.

[1] Ma Moyo - as in "Mother Moyo". I literally called her Mother.

Hibiscus

2008-12-21T13:21:00.018Z

It's that time of year when one reflects on the past, send wishes for the future, gorges on good food and gets trollied on fine liquor. So under the guise of my contracting company's Christmas Party, The Husband and I headed out to Hibiscus in Mayfair. I'd read a few newspaper reviews that went from absolutely pants to mediocre and completely stunning. What swayed me was that most customer opinions on foodie web sites was something along the lines of "the best food I've eaten all year!" My father is a chef who served many years as head chef of some of Africa's finest hotels so while I have the taste for fine dining, I only pretend to the class to eat at such fine establishments.

We started the evening with a glass of Pol Roger White Foil champagne. The Husband loves champagne and I didn't think we could start the evening any other way. We considered having a bottle but thought that we'd rather have more of a dessert wine later. We were served some delicious hand make bread which reminded me of my nanny Mamoyo's bread back in Rhodesia. This bread might just have been better than hers by a whisker but it was a treat to taste bread so good. I seldom eat the stuff since I don't digest gluten very well.

We opted for the 7 course taster menu and it was a perfect choice. I selected a German Riesling Spätlese 1997 from Forster Jesuitengarden to accompany the meal since I'm quite partial to white wines and still have a young man's palette. Despite the menu being 7 courses, there were 2 in-betweeners, the first being a hibiscus drink with an interesting foam and soft fruit. Sweetish and purple is my verdict. Yes, purple is a flavour too, just like orange is. :-) If you're not sure what purple tastes like, well now you know where to go find it.

The first course was tender scallops with tamarind sauce and Brazil nut shavings. The Husband cracked some good jokes about the food but we agreed that it was completely delicious. The second course is a smoked mash and egg yolk ravioli which is my favourite of the evening. The ravioli is about an inch and a half in diameter and perfectly al dente. The smoked aroma fills the mouth and nose while the soft egg yolk richness gives one that satisfied feeling that only a high calorie protein can. I'm intrigued to find out how the devil one smokes a potato but the sommelier informs me that the smoked flavour is from smoked butter. He was sure that their smoke house supplier in Shropshire probably could smoke a potato if they asked but the butter approach is probably more practical.

Third course was an oyster with apple jelly and chicory sauce. Nice with a fresh fish taste, delicate and light after the rich ravioli. The final fish course was halibut with quince, quince sauce, coffee sauce and a cabbage confit. The fish had a nice fleshy consistency and was quite strange with the hint of coffee - a great experience. The taster menu was thus far living up to its name perfectly and there was still another 3 courses to go! I check our progress through the Riesling and it seems we're drinking our way through it at about the right pace to finish the wine with the savoury courses. Course five was warm soft fois gras with romanscu mash and a sliver of Main de Bouddha. I always prefer warm fois gras to the cold paté varieties so the chef is already onto a winner - the careful seasoning on the top is quite salty but complements the richness of the liver nicely. The Main de Bouddha has a citrus flavour that is strong for such a fine sliver but doesn't overpower any other ingredient in the dish - again the flavours were nicely balanced. We ask about the fruit and our waiter brings over a sample of the fruit which can only be described as the mutant love child of a lemon and a sea anemone!

The last savoury course was a pork loin with a shrimp mash. This is the softest pork I have ever tasted. I didn't even know it could be cooked to this consistency and I resolve to try this at home. (Note to self: it's not fair to compare your own cooking to Michelin starred chefs.) I loved the shrimp mash and despite the softness of the pork, it still tasted like most other pork.

We quaff the last of our delicious Riesling and I call for the wine list. I'm quite partial to dessert wines and enjoy perusing the list. Since the night is about new an unusual flavours I go for a bottle of Rasteau Doré 1999 from the Rhône valley. It's not an area of France that's well known for it's dessert wines and this proves to be a very interesting choice. It has a dark colour and tasted somewhat like a port with essence of wine aroma, yet the gentle sweetness of a good dessert wine. The sommelier tells us that it's made in a very similar style to port which explains the initial taste. I didn't want to spoil the evening with pedantic criticism so I stayed schtum about Montbasillac being misspelled on the wine list. Pre-dessert, which beat the dessert in my opinion, was a chestnut cream layered on a chicory sauce with a Granny Smith apple jelly on the bottom. This didn't really strike me as a palette cleanser since it was quite flavourful. I could happily have ended the meal here and finished our dessert wine. Dessert was quite bizarre: pineapple and potato ice cream (interesting and nice!) with a potato skin tart (dull, flavourless and a dead loss) with truffle shavings on the ice cream (yuck!) The ice cream was the only redeeming feature of this course but I really had to scrape the truffle shavings off to appreciate it. The truffles smelled almost fishy which was quite disgusting in a dessert. The Husband and I had both had quite a bit to drink and finishing the dessert wine proved a struggle. In the end I showed some assimilation into British culture by chugging the last mouthful of dessert wine before we head off. Real class!

In all we had a fantastic meal and loved the atmosphere, the good service and superb food (fishy truffle dessert notwithstanding.) I can appreciate why this restaurant has a Michelin star and wish them all the best in reclaiming that second star that they lost when they moved the restaurant from Shropshire to London. Thank you also Uncle Alistair for chipping in for our lovely night out.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Introducing The Husband

2008-12-16T00:08:00.001Z

He's started blogging. First article here. :-)

Racy Science

2008-12-15T22:26:00.003Z

They had to capture nerd attention somehow but I think lowering the tone of the Max Plank Institute's science journal Max Planck Forschung by running a brothel advert on the front cover is possibly a step too far, as reported in the Independent on Tuesday. Alas, they were striving for the elegant calligraphy of a posh poem to introduce their focus on China but they checked with a second rate language student instead of someone literate.

The text effectively proclaimed "Hot Housewives in action!" on the front of the third-quarter edition. Their "enchanting and coquettish performance" was highly recommended. If they were going to keep the Chinese theme consistent then the cover should be yellow. Red is lucky and powerful, yellow is lurid and amourous. What we in the west would call a blue movie, Chinese would call a yellow movie.

You couldn't make it up!

Hors D'Oevres

2008-12-14T15:14:00.003Z

Friday was my first day back in the gym after my latest cold. Two colds so far this winter and we're not even half way through yet. It's always tough returning to gym after a break but this time it turned into a one month break. Cold number 1, Argentinian holiday then cold number 2. My personal trainer took me through a good fitness routine to get me back into the swing of things. He's good at finding my limits and pushing me right up to the red line, which is what a great trainer should do. At the end of the session I'm thoroughly exhausted and have to sit down for 10 minutes afterward to cool off. Since I'm still not fully recovered but don't want to get too chill in the changing room, I grab an extra towel, strip off and head for the sauna.

This is a first! No less than three playmates from previous encounters are sitting expectantly in the warmth, with no one of unknown interest nearby. As I walk in all three look happy to see me and their eyes follow me, with one shifting position to face me. This is more than flattery. I feel like the first hors d'oevre of the evening that makes it into the dinner party. At any other time it would have been lots of fun to have all three at the same time but I was completely exhausted and just wanted to sit quietly and gather myself before heading home to The Husband. So despite the attention, I sit facing the wall with my eyes closed. After a while two of the others left the sauna for a shower and the last guy strikes up a conversation in the privacy we're afforded. Since I'm not putting out that night he leaves as well, copping a feel on the way out! :-)

When I got home, The Husband ordered take out and we watched some tele while snuggling on the couch. He decided I was going to be dessert and so draged me to the bedroom for a thorough devouring. I might look like a tasty treat but frequently I only appear on The Husband's platter. Nice to know there's still that pzazz after twelve and a half years.

Dinner Date

2008-12-12T20:54:00.008Z

My services as a wentboy were engaged by a certain Big Gay Banker. I mean big in the reputational sense since my services on this occation extended only to elegant dinner conversation. :-) I received the dinner invitation before The Husband and I headed off to Argentina for a nice 10 day holiday then upon my return, GB suggested we meet at a lovely restaurant near the river. We talked about a great many things, blogging, men, swapping pictures of our other halfs at the Iguazú Falls as well as a few choice snaps of other good friends relaxing.

One of the conversations drew on our mutual interests in betting and computing as well as some of the games we like to bet on. My favourite game is Omaha Hi poker though I play Texas Hold'em poker more frequently since Hold'em poker is much more popular. Both games are community card poker variants. I mentioned to GB that back in July 2008 the Polaris poker bot from the University of Alberta managed to beat some world poker champions at a narrowly defined limit game. It's a very hard task to teach a computer to play poker well enough to beat a poker champion at all - I'm very impressed by their work.

To any budding poker players, I suggest you read The Complete Book of Hold'em Poker by Gary Carson. It goes from a basic walk through the betting procedure and card matching to a full description of betting theory and pot odds, as well as some good tips for classifying players and suggesting how such players typically play. It's an excellent starter manual for what is a subtle and rich game. David Sklansky wrote The Theory of Poker, a game theory analysis of poker though I haven't read this one yet. No recommendation should leave out Big Deal by Anthony Holden, in which he writes about his year out from journalism to be a professional poker player. It conveys the spirit of poker unlike the technical manuals and is a jolly good read.

In all we spent five and a half hours chatting, laughing, eating and drinking but it seemed like the time flew by. GB transparently and deeply loves the men in his life. His eyes were filled with emotion when he spoke of his lovers. Despite all the naughtiness of his encounters, I found him to be quite the romantic and his thoughts turned frequently to the men he loves. It's always nice to make a new friend who is so much fun to be around - tactile too! I love tactile people since I'm quite big on hugs. I hold things back from my blog as I do in real life and as GB said, it can be very therapeutic to let it go and blogs are a safe environment in which to do so. So here is were you'll find me, brave world. And much more of me in future.

Thank you for the courage GB. I can only hope I did my job as dining companion - to be honest it's not one of the wentboy skills I use often enough. We'll only know if I get repeat business I suppose. :-)

Tree Delivered

2008-12-08T22:52:00.005Z

The tree arrived today! So civilised that one can get just about anything delivered these days. We cut the required inch off the bottom of the trunk and put it into the stand. I've watered it and cut it free from the spider web packaging in which it's delivered. It's quite late now so it shall stand thus for a few more days sans bling. Count on it not to remain so for long!

Tomorrow is poker night with the lads and Wedensday night I'm having dinner with a friend but you'll read more about that later. I reckon it will have round one of baubles by Thursday night. :-)

Miscommunication

2008-12-08T21:09:00.002Z

Thai Swimmer Boy has been around the gym quite frequently before my wonderful holiday in Argentina. For a couple of weeks I could reliably find him in the sauna after my workout. He's very sweet natured and lots of eye candy. We enjoy chatting which he says is hard since he feels many English speakers won't understand him. So it was that after him living in England for over two years that I was the first to tell him about Guy Fawkes gunpowder plot any why we celebrate Bonfire Night. He can also be relied on for a spot of fun in the sauna when privacy permits.

So it was one evening we came to be caught out. I sat where I had a reasonable view of incoming traffic either by shadows from one side or a bit of reflection in green glass from the other side so that we could enjoy ourselves without upsetting anyone else. I saw someone coming and snatched my hand back out of his towel and put on my best non-chalant face - sadly he didn't get the importance of what I'd done and still had his hand blissfully occupied as another bloke strolled past into a shower cubicle. As the guy strolled past he glanced into the sauna to see me looking non-chalant with Thai Swim Boy's hand obviously placed in my towel. Oh err! After a classic double-take the stroller didn't stop walking and simply went into the shower. There was no complaint and I haven't seen that bloke since but I felt awful. A bit of fun is fine but making other people feel uncomfortable in that space isn't cool.

I must be more explicit with my warnings next time!

My New Motorbike

2008-12-08T19:15:00.006Z

I passed my full motorcycle license a couple of months ago. Friends were all asking which bike I was going to buy but I decided to focus on passing the license first and then allow myself the luxury of shopping for a nice ride. Had I failed the test I also would not have felt the dream bike slip further into the future but it seems this caution wasn't necessary. I was so happy with the pass that I bought the bike on the weekend after my pass. Someone had ordered this exact bike, right colour and all the trimmings shortly before me but then canceled the order just before delivery. I negotiated a bit of money off the list price and got to ride away with it just one short week after order! I call her my dragon, a gorgeous red BMW F650GS.

Previous models have had a 650CC engine but this year the F800GS and F650GS use the same 800CC engine, just tuned differently. I have a long history of bike riding, it's not that different from bicycle riding to be honest. My dad taught me to ride a bicycle aged 4 or 5 and then to ride one of his bikes, a 100CC Suzuki when I was aged about 13. At university I was permitted to ride an old Honda CB400 on my South African learner license. I kind of regret not getting my full license earlier. South African cities were much less safe for motorcycles, Johannesburg in particular so when I moved to the city for work I let go of my enjoyment of motorcycling. I hear from friends that traffic congestion and fuel prices have lead many of my former countrymen to take up motorcycles and scooters for commuting.

As a child, my father would demand I attend him during his weekend car repair sessions. The number of times I can recall patching our old car's exhaust! The day would involve dad saying he needs my help, please don't run off. I complain at the loss of play time but sit beside the car underneath which he is working handing him a number 8 spanner or another tool in exchange for the one he was using. I hated it. If it was an attempt to bond with me it was his least successful ploy. When my parents moved to Israel some years ago my dad offered me his all-weather mechanic's suit: protects your clothes from grease and dirty while it keeps you warm. I look immediately skeptical and mother replies for me: "as if Robbie is going to take up car repair!" I think it is only at this time that my father finally gives up on sharing this kind of activity with me.

Now I have a beautiful machine of my own. I am reliably informed by the manual that came with the bike that I should clean and relubricate the chain every week during winter and chatting to one of the guys at Metropolis in Vauxhall, that I should also hose down the underside of my bike to get the salt and grit off. The sooner I can get the salt off the better since its very corrosive. This is how I found myself cleaning grease off my bike and washing it down. Wanting to preserve my dragon in the best condition possible, not because someone told me to or because we might bond and learn something. I needed so many years of space and independence to find my own reasons, something that I don't feel I had the chance to develop with my parents. I had no chance to talk to anyone as a child or teenager. Talking superficially about the world was fine but we didn't talk about our thoughts and feelings. My parents are a benign presence through my life but I don't know them and I found little reason to trust them. I have no idea how they might feel about certain topics and I am confident they will not be able to comment on my desires. A gulf exists between us. Having acknowleged this I find the same gulf between me and everyone else around me. So it is that I find myself aged 33 sitting in therapy trying to process my emotions and trying to find the courage to open myself to the world and its people.

And until I figure that one out I have an enjoyable solitude on my dragon. I ride her to work, to gym and around the countryside. It's too cold for more than the odd ride into the countryside but I look forward to a rich spring and summer exploring country lanes and picturesque routes. I think of my dragon a bit like Saphira of the movie Eragon. Not that I've found any magical powers that are part of this dragon package like Eragon. Only the ordinary magic of cheap travel with half the journey time of all other means of transport in London. I can't speak Elvish words and have fire come shooting out my hands (and why would that be desirable exactly?)

Back in the realm of ordinary magic, the words to a real fire spell go something like "chicken vindaloo please" and about 4 hours later fire goes shooting out behind. I can't for the life of me think of any utility to this kind of magic either!

Audience Participation

2008-09-21T14:16:00.002+01:00

It seems that the new face from a few weeks ago is not only a keen fan of the performing arts but he's quite up for some audience participation. I wasn't in a hurry after my gym workout last Friday and so headed to the spa for some relaxation. I found the new face in the coed steam room. He tried to play it cool but his eyes gave him away, steaming quietly in the corner. Sure enough, he made his way to the mens only sauna in the male changing room shortly afterward and sat barely covered by his towel. I sat enjoying the heat in the sauna but he was clearly watching me and seemed to like what he saw before the show started.

He had nice balls and enjoyed being groped. We were almost disturbed just as he came which gave quite a thrill of danger and can make it awkward not to make a mess in the sauna. Pity one can't arrange for more privacy in such situations. We parted company to go clean ourselves up.

He seemed like a dab hand at such fun so it's likely I'll see him again. Must think of a name for the boy.

Eurostar Ate My Weekend

2008-09-17T14:11:00.005+01:00

The past weekend was The Husband's birthday and I planned us a romantic weekend away in gay Paris. I got confirmation of my contract start date from the bank and so resigned from the nasty hedge fund earlier the previous week. The timing of my resignation was quite good since I documented a few last things on Thursday then set off for St Pancras to await our 18:30 train.

Around 16:40 they started to announce the suspension of all trains due to the fire in the tunnel. I called The Husband to let him know that it might not be necessary for him to come to the station, that Paris might not be an option. :-( The train staff directed us to the ticket office to reschedule our tickets or get refunds and immediately a very long queue developed. For 30 minutes we stood in a queue and endured the confusion of the train staff after which I thought to myself that the ticket office couldn't possibly deal with several train loads of passengers wanting to reschedule for tomorrow. We had been advised that if we were to get any refunds at all, we'd have to stand in the queue. I knew they'd have to change their tune on that but I'd already summoned The Husband to being the tickets. For his own comfort he insisted on keeping the tickets with him so he'd have to bring them to the station for exchange. Eventually the ticket office staff came walking down the line to say that there is nothing they could do for us today. Without knowing how bad the tunnel damage is or when service would resume, it wouldn't be prudent for them to book future tickets, we should please go home and check the Eurostar web site for updates.

Talk about being all dressed up and nowhere to go! I had checked last minute flight details on my iPhone and there just wasn't anything affordable on offer. I tried to sell The Husband a replacement weekend in a city Up North but he really didn't like the idea. If he couldn't have Paris then he didn't want to leave London. :-( So much for all my months of planning the perfect romantic weekend in Paris. This put me in a total funk for most of the weekend. We stayed in London and made a French themed weekend of it with lunch at Sacre Coeur Bistro in Islington on Friday, a nice petit dejeuner at a French patisserie on Saturday. Some friends from South Africa were in town and we invited them for dinner at the Bleeding Heart Restaurant in Holborn (overpriced although the food was quite good).

Being able to exchange the tickets for travel at another date doesn't compensate for the disrupted travel. It's not Eurostar's fault though. At least we're not marooned on a sunny Mediterranean island paradise like the poor customers of failed airline XL. Lucky sods.

Little Wobin Wentboy

2008-09-06T12:02:00.003+01:00

I'm certain the concierge thought I was a rentboy. After a bizarre failed meeting with someone who had a divinely muscled body (a personal obsession) I take out the trusty iPhone and arrange another hook up with a bloke staying in Canary Wharf. At the Four Seasons, Canary Wharf.

The doors of the hotel are routinely locked during the wee hours so one must attract the attention of the concierge to even get into the lobby. I explain that I'm here to see a friend, no I don't mind him calling up to make sure that's OK with my friend since it's 2am. So much for the Belle de Jour technique of marching confidently to the lift (note: only possible during certain hours of the day!) The concierge shows me to the lift and up I go. I emerge about an hour later freshly showered asking to be let out.

Leather jacket and jeans with that behaviour: definitely rentboy!

Parking Ticket!

2008-09-05T06:40:00.003+01:00

Westminster council have hit upon yet another way to fleece road users in their borough. They have started charging for motorcycle parking under the justification of using the money to pay for providing more parking spaces. This is clearly fiction since I only know of one full motorcycle parking bay (though I'm sure there are more that are full) but there are another 10 within half a mile that are never more than half full. You can always tell when a politician is lying: their lips are moving.

So on Monday 1st of September I park my bike, grumble about being made to pay for something that is free everywhere else and call the parking payment telephone service for which I registered in August. I enter the location code written on the signs and it reads to me my motorcycle's registration number followed by the phrase "you have paid for one day's parking. To pay for one week press 1, to pay for..." at which point I hang up the call. Damn me if I don't get to my bike later on and find a ticket saying I didn't pay for parking!

Now I have to go through the damned appeals process which is an inconvenience. I absolutely refuse to pay them. I'm incensed at their filthy money grubbing tactics and I feel that this is a good example of government abusing their power and bullying their citizens. They have the right to charge for parking of course but considering that they have dedicated parking appeal staff (did I say appeal? I mean prosecution, judge and executioners!) who are paid to bias for the council. My poker buddy is a professor at a London university and he has researched this in some detail. The council parking authorities have a policy of always refusing informal appeals and almost never defending formal appeals. This maximises their parking revenue since many innocent people will not take it to a formal appeal. The council does not want to risk a formal appeal going against them since this sets a legal precedent and the independent authority can legally require them to change their unreasonable parking practices. It's much more profitable for them to keep some unreasonable practices and let a few fish through the net.

Bastards!

Sauna Cruise

2008-08-30T16:11:00.007+01:00

Gym was very cruisey yesterday. Thai Swim Boy was around as were a few of the regular suspects. There was a new face in the sauna chatting to one of the regulars, usually a sign that they too are a Friend of Dorothy. I didn't listen too closely to what they were saying or what accent the new face carried but I was left with the impression that the new face was Irish. I've developed quite a taste for Irish stew it would seem! He may well have been English but I just can't remember why I pegged him for an Irishman. He was subtle enough in the sauna but when I went for a shower he made sure to leave the sauna and sit where he could peek into my shower cubicle.

My gym's shower cubicles have doors but a 5mm gap through which one can see if anyone if the cubicle is occupied. After noticing that I had an audience I made sure there was a show worth watching. While there was no applause and I couldn't make out whether or not there was a standing ovation, it seemed the show held the audience attention. I quite enjoy the performing arts.

Thai Swim Guy and I had a spot of fun in the sauna months ago but he has been quite scarce since. We were leaving gym at about the same time the day before yesterday but somehow missed each other outside. I waited to speak to him but he must have left already. Yesterday we were both keen to chat afterward and were careful to leave at the same time. We walked together for a time, exchanged phone numbers and chatted. He seems like such a nice guy. While I thought his English to be perfectly acceptable he says that his colleagues sometimes complain that they do not understand him. He works in the hospitality industry, which has a high ratio of foreign workers. I'm not surprised that people in that industry may struggle to speak to each other in English. This makes Thai Swim Guy shy and he holds himself back in social situations that require English.

Just as well body language works in saunas!

Self Knowledge

2008-08-30T14:22:00.011+01:00

I've been working a job at a hedge fund for a couple of months. They're all messed up and it's horrible. I'm ditching it soon in favour of a contract at an investment bank. *shrug* It's just work... I'd rather have work that I believe makes the world a better place; everything else is just to pay the bills.

Gym has been really rewarding recently. I can see improvements in the weight I'm lifting and my abs are gradually coming through. For the first time in my life I'm feeling good about my body. An intellectual corner of my mind ridicules me for having Barbie syndrome, probably with more Ken influence though. I've always been drawn to fit and muscled guys, especially Joel the blond haired blue eyed water polo player who studied art at high school. Damn him for being a sexy, cool, understanding straight boy! I wonder if I'm emotionally marooned on that unrequited desire for beautiful floppy haired Joel. I spent my teen years hiding in an emotional bunker. I was besieged by the world, feeling isolated, hated and attacked when in hindsight the other kids just didn't know what to make of me. Many of them ignored me, some tried to befriend me but I was already a lonely skittish wreck, not able to understand their overtures. I still think of Joel at least once a month. I wonder where he is and if he's OK, how he's doing and if he's happy. I last saw him in the late 90's in a shopping mall in Johannesburg, long after we had finished high school. It was a brief and friendly conversation that had the same easiness of when we were in high school. I hope you're well mate.

I suppose that part of the way that I process my feelings of attraction for other men is to compare myself to the people I'm attracted to. To be attracted to fit muscled men I feel that I must be able to compare favourably on the terms by which I evaluate desirability. It's an odd way of thinking about sex and attraction. The comparison is almost competitive. But love and sex are on the face of it cooperative and mutually supportive and mutually pleasing endeavours. There's a tension then between my primal male desire to dominate or be dominated by other males in a tribal hierarchy and my feelings of love and desire for sex with some of those same men. It is an aspect of being a gay man that I am not at peace with but which I am now aware of.

If I am to accept myself and find fulfillment, then self knowledge is a key first goal. We cannot overcome shortcomings in ourselves that we cannot see.

iPhone Happiness

2008-07-11T14:42:00.001+01:00

This is my first blog entry from the latest gadget du jour. On the App Store I found a nifty little app called Lifecast which integrates with blogger. It offers to manage photo, text and GPS location posts to the blog. I'm wondering if this convenience will make me a more frequent blogger. Time will tell if my usage while out and about when I have a free moment will get me passed the frustration of thumb typing on a qwerty touch screen keyboard. GPS location disabled for the time being.

Posted with LifeCast

Windy Day

2008-06-22T22:52:00.002+01:00

I woke up this morning to a howling gale outside. After saying good morning to The Husband, he commented on the wind. I'd only been awake for 10 seconds or so and understood him to say: "the gales will particularly affect whales today". WTF?! How hard does the wind have to gust to affect large undersea creatures?

The disconnect is so jarring that I wake fully and reinterpret the sentence to mean: "the gales will particularly affect Wales today."

What a way to start the day.

A Bit of Fun at the Gym

2008-06-01T22:08:00.004+01:00

After my exercise routine at the gym a couple of days ago, I finished up with a nice spa session in the heated pool and jacuzzi downstairs. While I'm relaxing in the jacuzzi I notice a really nice looking bloke: nice legs, nice arse and masculine face. There's no sign that he's doing anything but enjoying the hot water pools and relaxing. I'm between jobs right now so I have lots of time on my hands; perhaps too much since I'm starting to feel a bit lonely and crave some of the social interaction one gets at work. The last part of my relaxation after the spa was a bit of time in the sauna and here I find the sexy guy from the jacuzzi. Eye contact (check!), loosely wrapped towel (check!), pointed interest in my crotch after the eye contact (woohoo!) and a wedding ring on his left ring finger (ahh okay...) There's a few other guys in the sauna who aren't interesting and I sit strategically placed so that the goods are on display to the interesting guy but my leg and towel show nothing untoward to the others. He leaves to have a cool shower and returns to his previous seat but sits pointedly facing me. :-)

When the others leave and the coast is clear, I stop holding myself back and pop a full on stiffy which puts a sparkle in his eyes. He stands up and loosens his towel so that I get a look at his package too and boy oh boy, it's some toolset he's packing. I'm not particularly a size queen but unusually large equipment is interesting to see when it does come around. He seems nervous of doing anything in the sauna and asks what we want to do. I'm not sure how to respond since I don't want to be caught locked in some room with him but I'm fine with a bit of a feel and a short wank in the dark seclusion of the sauna. While I'm fine with a bit of a touch 'n feel, it seems like several guys are quite intent on an orgasm which I'm not so focused on. I don't particularly want to mess up the sauna! He drifts off to a shower, perhaps expecting me to follow him but I just shower and head back to my locker to dress.

As I'm toweling myself dry, a bloke who chatted me up (unsuccessfully) on gaydar is dressing for exercise. We recognise each other and he looks a bit crestfallen. I smile back in a friendly way and make sure to take my time drying, making sure every little bit is well toweled from his angle. He notices the friendly display and takes his time dressing. I suspect that another bloke saw us smiling at each other and frowned a bit but hey, we weren't doing anything wrong! Eventually my audience leaves without us chatting but with a big smile. Flirting is such naughty fun!

The guy from the sauna spoke with what I think was an Irish accent. I bumped into him leaving the gym around 2pm the day after so I think I'm going to nickname him Lunchtime Irish.

Boots

2008-05-24T03:02:00.003+01:00

The Husband and I decided to head out to Tonker at The Eagle in Vauxhall tonight. It was a very nice night out. We bumped into several friends and enjoyed chatting to some of the sexy friendly bears. The Husband made sure to pack his fur inspector's license and made liberal use of it.

I wore my leather trousers because they're one of the most comfortable pieces of clothing that I own although a few boys noticed and had to touch to appreciate. Poor me. ;-) For footwear I used my boots, the ones that I bought to wear with some rubber gear at Torture Garden. Upon seeing them for the first time, my friend G who might be considered a connoisseur of such things gave the following critique: "more dirty rotten bastard, darling, and less couture next time." Ah, yes. I suppose I didn't try to conform to that particular image but I like my boots despite them being footwear you could wear to a respectable function after you clean the dried beer and spunk off them. *shrug* No laces is practical for cleaning although nothing is going to prevent them being full of a whole night of your body's sweat channeled down through a waterproof suit into your boots. A couple of days drying and they're right as, err, rain.

The leather trousers haven't scuffed too badly at the knees yet although it is probably time for renewal. Fashion. Gotta love it.

Found by Ex-Colleague

2008-05-20T21:31:00.003+01:00

After I finished gym today I was walking past the building where I used to work on the way to the shops. I bumped into an ex-colleague who I like to chat with so we stopped for a bit of a chin wag. During the conversation he mentioned that he'd found this blog and connected it to me. Both the pencil sketch of my face and a previous story related here made it obvious to him that it was me. He said we was a regular reader of GB's blog and he found a link to mine there. The fact that he reads GB's blog regularly and that I'd relayed that particular story to him in person before should tell you what a chilled out guy he is. Of all the ex-colleagues to find my blog, I mind him finding it the least.

GB also connected this blog to my profile on another website partly from the pencil sketch. I don't particularly mind this either although I don't particularly want to be recognised from my blog so I'm afraid it's adieu to the lovely sketch.

More flirting today with cute gym staff boy named A. We talked about exercise and his regime in particular. He's quite the endurance athlete, apparently. It does show in his fantastic physique. Almost got caught inflagraté in the sauna today. Some nice Romanian bloke was eager to help me out. Another bloke walked past the glass door quickly and might have seen us but barely a minute later he appeared wearing only a towel which was quickly aside and he sat down naked. He too was probably eager for some help but I was uncomfortable with the crowd so I didn't stay long.

Tattoo Numero Deux

2008-05-18T21:42:00.008+01:00

I've more or less decided on what my next tattoo will be. I want a modern western interpretation of the Buddhist Wheel of Life on my back. The image to the right shows a traditional Tibetan style thangka of the Wheel of Life. It shows the cycle of rebirths through each of the six realms of existence with the joys and suffering inherent in each realm. I found the following lovely explanation for the essence of this teaching:

"Whether we are meditating, dreaming, or going about our other activities ultimately we are responsible for our own experience. According to the Buddhist view, objects and beings make their appearance without an external stimulus, or any First Cause. It is said that, just as a painter can paint a portrait of a demon and then be terrified by it, so unenlightened beings paint a picture of the six realms of samsara and then are tormented and terrified by that picture.

Through the power of our own minds, we create the six realms of existence and then rotate through them. We are the ones who create the realms and the endless cycle known as samsara.

I find the traditional style beautiful to look at but quite cluttered. Many of the cultural references are obscure to us westerners, hence I would like a western interpretation. I was really impressed by Nicole Louw's work on London Ink so I looked her up but sadly I was away on holiday on her booking day. :-( While watching TV today I saw a call for people interested in being tattooed in series 2 of London Ink so I've sent in my idea. Here's to hoping it generates some interest and I get the tat for free. If not I'll probably still make the time available and get her to work on it since it is her speciality and she mentioned an interest in this sort of work on Buddhist art in series 1.

Flirting at Gym

2008-05-17T11:05:00.006+01:00

I workout at a Virgin Active gym near where I live. It used to be a Holmes Place gym until Virgin bought the chain. The salesman who signed me up is gorgeous and he flirted shamelessly with me while selling the membership. The customary free workout came with some attention from him, useful tips on new equipment while bantering about how it worked deep into the pectoral muscle after I'd tried the machine. "Can you feel it working?" he asked after a session on a power plate machine. "Let me check" I answer reaching over to feel his chest. :-)

The gym does have excellent facilities and it's near my home. I seldom buy just because the salesman is cute and flirts, although that does help to keep my attention. GB claims that the old Holmes Place gyms had quite a reputation. I wouldn't know anything about such goings on, demure well behaved lad that I am so I'll bow before his superior knowledge of the carnal side of London's gyms.

One of the other gym staff, a young smiley chatty guy caught my eye some weeks ago. In his uniform he looked OK but his bubbly personality was really charming and I did kind of wonder if he was making a point of talking to me. I was changing after my workout yesterday and he happened to be changing next to me. Again the bubbling and chatting only this time he's only dressed in pants and WOW, what a lovely body. Slim and lean but nicely muscled with shapely masculine legs and a six pack. Now I'm sure he was checking me out while I dressed! I make sure to introduce myself so we know each other's names and he says how easy my name should be to remember since his favourite song is Rockin' Robin. Have we moved from flirting into cheesy yet? No, I think he was being genuine and sweet. I'm still wearing my rose tinted I-got-cruised-by-cute-gym-staff glasses so we'll leave it there.

Early Memories - Vic Falls and Bulawayo

2008-05-14T21:56:00.011+01:00

I'm seeing a therapist to try to work through the heavy emotional junk I carry around in my head. Independently of headbang8's comment on one of my earlier posts, she too mentioned that frequently the basis for self -loathing starts very young.

I only have very patchy memories of being very young - my soft toy collection, the house in the town of Victoria Falls with the bomb shelter in the garden where we lived until I was about 3, the old black gardener at that house who would chase me about the garden waving his walking stick, a car owned by some family friends, a neighbour's house that had a very shaded garden and a swing connected to a tall tree thus having a very long pendulum swing, the white steps of the Victoria Falls Hotel where my parents worked, being carried half asleep into the bomb shelter by a parent in the middle of the night to the sound of land mines exploding in the distance. My nanny, Otillia Mamoyo, is a protective presence near me during the day time. I remember a black dancer picking up a length of railway track with his teeth for the entertainment of tourists, his skin a smooth and shining black, his eyes and teeth stark white during the night time performance. I can remember the wetness all around me while visiting the rain forest opposite the gorge of the falls (pictured right). I think my father and older brother launched a wooden glider constructed from a kit over the falls, never to see it again. I have vaguer recollections of being in my pram, hating the restraints and fighting to get out of the pram because I wanted to walk around much to my mother's exasperation, which are my earliest recollections.

Memories from the Hebrew-English Nursery School I attended in Bulawayo, aged 4, are there too right next to the house near Llewellyn Barracks where my father worked after the hotel. At that house my dad built a large cement fish pond decorated around the edges with large rocks, eventually housing gold fish. He also built a large aviary where my brother kept a cockatiel who would draw blood by biting one whenever he was caught for veterinary inspection or when the aviary was to be cleaned. The garden contained 3 huge mulberry trees on which grew a feast of sweet delicious mulberrys. On summer afternoons my brother and I could spend hours picking and eating the delicious fruit off the trees. Mum would insist that we used old clothing since our afternoon's fruit feast would inevitably stain our clothes with purple mulberry blotches. Zookie, the family boxer dog and I would sometimes sleep under the hedge together during the hottest time of the day. He was a genius for finding cool snoozing spots. The gardener at this house, Justin, planted and maintained a large vegetable patch at the bottom of the garden under a lot of shade. He would invite me in to pick peas in the right season, shelling sweet scrumptious peas straight out of the pod on the plant. I think it was at this time that my brother and I would attend once weekly horse riding lessons at the local military stables. My brother rode and elegant grey and I got and old nag named Kitsaw. I can remember making a reasonably good rider with Kitsaw's only successful attempt to unseat me following a rather fast jump. The regimental mascot was a bad tempered little Shetland Pony who was stabled at the same place. It only took 2 unpleasant bites from the nasty little creature for me to stay well away from it.

I can't remember Otillia being around much during this period although I do remember her offering to crochet a blanket each for my brother and I. We were given the choice of any colour yarn we could find at the local shop. My brother picked a demure deep dark wine colour, almost purple. I selected the brightest pink I could find (the signs were there early!) In the end my blanket was a mix of the dark wine colour and vibrant pink. I loved that blanket and can remember it traveling with us to South Africa. I had it at least until age 13. Her face and the sound of her voice are still quite clear to me.

The last place we stayed in Bulawayo was a lovely house in the suburb of Kumalo North. I had a male Siamese cat which I named Woozle. This name perfectly described the whistling purring sound which he made when contented - and it suited him perfectly, though when asked to spell it for the vet during his first stitch-up, mum recalls me volunteering the spelling "wah oo oo zil" - I was all for straightforward spellings, I'm sure you'll agree. It all made perfect sense to me at the time, the adults would just have to get with the programme. Woozle was quite the tomcat. He would disappear for weeks on end then return in the middle of the night torn to shreds from fights from other toms. His favourite entry portal was my mother's bedroom window. The poor bedraggled thing would then make a beeline for my room, making sure to bleed thoroughly over both my parents asleep in their bed on his way to me. Ah yes. We attended many late night stitch-ups for my dear Woozle cat. Between his excursions were sojourns where I would pamper and love him and he would eat as much as possible while returning to health. He would keep his skills sharp by catching snakes, birds, lizards and rodents then bring them in to show me. He had a particular kind of meow when he was bringing me his prizes for admiration and approval. The best place for dining was under my bed, much to Otillia's horror since it fell to her to clean up dead half eaten snakes. I just couldn't fathom why there was so much fuss. He was a good cat for clearing out the snakes after all.

The cockatiel came with us from Llewellyn Barracks but escaped his cage at some point during our stay here. The garden was unremarkable although I had reached the height and agility to be able to climb all the trees and the roof of the house. The tree that extended over a busy road caused the most fuss although it was quite fun to watch the buses and trucks pass underneath little me. I would join Otillia and Justin our black servants at their midday meal - typically of sadza and gravy, occasionally with chomolia (a delicious African cabbage). Mom recalls Otillia being distressed that I wanted to sit on the ground and eat African food with them. Mom dismissed these worries and asked Otillia please to let me eat with them since I really wanted to. I would even eat with hands, African style, not with a spoon. It just tasted better that way! I had a circle of 5 other Jewish friends my age that lived nearby, whom I knew from nursery school. We attended the first year of school together at Carmel in Bulawayo. Our parents formed a lift club and occasionally I would spend an afternoon with my good friend RB. My mom drove a small black Mini and dad made an pretty good impressionist style oil painting of the front of the house as seen from the road. That painting somehow made it to South Africa with us when we moved.

It recall my early childhood as a happy time. These are most of my earliest memories and feelings. They set the scene in some way but I'm not sure how. There are some harder memories but I'll leave those for the next post.

Fun With Hebrew

2008-05-12T20:23:00.006+01:00

Our wonderful holiday has come to and end with a dreadful flight back from Israel. Thomsom Fly had a problem with the plane scheduled to take us from Luton to Israel so they provided another plane but to meet Israeli security requirements they had to endure an hour and a half security sweep of the new plane. We were flying out at midday arriving at about 8pm so the delay starting our holiday was only a small inconvenience. The same happens on our flight back to the UK which was scheduled to leave at 9pm Israel time and to arrive in the UK at 1am UK time. The hour and a half delay leaving combined with the bus connection to the train station, train back to St Pancras then taxi back to our home in south east London meant that we only arrived home at 4:30am. I managed to get only 4 hours sleep before the sun's brightness woke me. Ah well, the tickets where cheap and I did get to flirt with a very cute Jewish guy on the flight back. Left him an email address and phone number and we'll meet for coffee later this week. :-)

I was surprised how much Hebrew I recognised and when we travel I tend to have reached a basic level of fluency of the local language by the time we leave. I just love languages and they give one quite a deep insight into how speakers of that language think. Hebrew has a rigid system of assigning gender to all nouns and verbs decline according to the gender of the noun being discussed. Masculine noun plurals are different to feminine noun plurals etc. No wonder then that the religion is still deeply rooted in gender roles and in the Hasidic community takes issues of gender and sexuality to absurd extremes.

I was only taught Hebrew to elementary school level and we always used niqqud when writing words. We had started to learn the cursive script but it seems like most of that knowledge has leaked out of my head. :-( Modern Hebrew is usually written without niqqud so I pass the time by looking at the consonants and trying various vowel combinations to guess the word. This lead to some very amusing moments when I realised how many English words have been adopted wholesale and were simply spelled using Hebrew letters. Familiar product names or brand names would also give me a giggle when I realised how the letters were pronounced. Some fond favourites include the Renault Mégane (רנו מגן), Fairy liquid (פאריי) and a supermarket chain called "Discount" (דיסקונת).

The poor Husband felt quite illiterate while we were there. He can't read any Hebrew at all but would occasionally come up with some really creative interpretations of Hebrew words by reading them as English even though he knows that Hebrew is read right to left. Best of all was his reading of an apple and pomegranate juice container. He read the Hebrew word for apples (תפוחים) as "onion." Onion juice? Probably not the most popular breakfast juice anywhere.

Rememberance

2008-05-07T12:16:00.012+01:00

Today is Yom HaZikaron. Dad and I were out on the road going to the shops when the sirens sounded. Like everyone else we parked the car at the side of the road and got out to show our respects for the soldiers and victims of terrorism. We had stopped at the top of Har Giyora and so had a good view of the two air force jets flying over Jerusalem during the siren. It's odd to feel such a strong association for Israel having never lived here or visited before.

These emotions are a tangled ball of feeling. The ethnic identity is strongly connected to the Jewish religion which is strongly connected to the Hebrew language and out of these three things has been manufactured the political cause of Zionism. I do feel the strong ethnic connection and I think that this is the basis for my strongest emotions. I really don't buy the religious stuff; what Richard Dawkins called the belief in an invisible alpha male in the sky. There are some very practical elements in the religion that teach clean living and healthy eating like including a ritual washing of hands before meals and the kosher laws but the core worship of the religion isn't for me. I was taught Hebrew from the start of school until I left the despised Carmel school aged 10. Most of the written script here in Israel is, of course, Hebrew and I'm surprised how much I have retained from 23 years ago. I've studied Afrikaans, French and Mandarin since and I enjoy studying languages immensely. It keeps my grey matter working well; studying keeps my mind clean and sharp. I now find a desire to complete my Hebrew education. I have a foundation from which to build already and it will be practical when I visit my parents in future. In a way it will also complete and possibly heal my ethnic association which I have, not exactly denied but not really acknowledged.

Zionism is the really hard bit. From my ethnic connection and knowing how different I was made to feel growing up in Christian societies, I plainly see the logic of having a Jewish state. Being around so many other Jews is a very comfortable thing and I felt some pride in the soldiers piloting the jets over Jerusalem, a desire to share in and defend this wonderful thing that is the Jewish homeland. I'm not sure that I like the cost on the Palestinian people. I know that they were offered Israeli citizenship and a fair democratic vote in the new country. They spurned this as unacceptable; no Jewish state could exist on land they shared. This conflict is protracted and very hard on both sides and I just don't see any easy way to resolve it. Having now been here and felt so much at home among the other Jewish people I am very reluctant to consider giving up any of the new settlements to Palestine. This land was not used prior to Israeli occupation but now that the land can be shown to be useful, the Palestinians especially want those pieces of land. Hmm. From where I'm standing now the Palestinian position looks like old fashioned anti-Semitism, something that is very popular in the Arab world.

I need to know the other side of the story and I have no idea how to find it out. The media never carry a full or unbiased story so while it might let one know of events it always selects facts and filtered opinions. I really hope some solution can be found for these two people to share this beautiful land. It is clear that a solution that favours one side will never work.

Early Education

2008-05-06T19:32:00.005+01:00

People say that children can be truly cruel. I know this first hand from my hateful experiences at Carmel in Pretoria aged 6 to 10. These were years 2 to 5 of primary school for me. I was entered into school aged 5 in Zimbabwe, as with all children there. My peers in South Africa entered school a year later so I was always the youngest in my class in all the South African schools. I've written about some of my experiences at Carmel in an earlier post but I have more to add.

I tried so hard to fit in. I think that it was for my 10th birthday that I asked my parents to host a birthday party at a lovely park where several of my peers had also had their parties. I got the fancy colourful invitation paper and enthusiastically handed out invitations to my class mates. One person came. They must have spoken amongst themselves about the party to agree that this was not an event to attend. I was absolutely gutted. My parents had gone to quite a bit of trouble and the park was quite a long way from our home. I felt very differently about birthday celebrations from that time on and basically stopped thinking much about them and perhaps once since then celebrated the event. Each year is a painful anniversary of that very public and deeply humiliating snub. My parents tried to hold one or two more parties after that but I resisted and talked down each event, refusing to cooperate even to tell them who to invite. Small events with a cake and birthday song from just my family would happen anyway but I somehow got them to ignore the event beyond a happy birthday hug and a nice meal in the evening.

What do you do at 10 years of age when faced with that kind of rejection and humiliation? I had no emotional tools or wisdom with which to cope with the event. I still haven't coped with it. How exactly do you deal with, err.. all but one of your peers despising and ignoring you in this way? It's just playing together or being included in conversation but that was everything to me then. We find the boundaries and develop our social skills at this age so this was our whole world then.

Well, I wasn't completely ignored. The game of choice at break time was to play with marbles. It involved skill, pretty objects and could be twisted into a display of hierarchy according to one's material disposition. Perhaps by now you can guess where I might fit. You're right, I still didn't fit in at all. Sometimes the other kids would form strategic partnerships to share their marbles for a day and split the proceeds or share the pain of loss. I was always excluded from these dealings except for the one day that James Novitz forgot his marbles at home. Come break time he was warm and charming: "could we share my marbles and be partners?" Of course we could. Acceptance at last. I was overjoyed. He chose where to play and dragged me about like a pack animal but I was so happy. He was talking to me! When play time ended, so did our happy association. I didn't realise it since I went back to being quietly ignored by everyone at class time. The next day at play time, I bounded up to JN like a sycophantic little puppy ready to grow yesterday's friendship but this day he'd remembered to bring his marbles and I was turned down plainly and as briefly as possible.

This is where I learned how it felt to be suckered and used. Aged 10 I knew what it felt like to be dirty and low. I was the untouchable; the despised outcast who could be treated rudely without consequence or used for pleasure and discarded like trash. This is what I learned at Carmel.

I came across JN at university. We happened to study one or two common subjects in first year and I heard someone address him with his full name in class. I instantly recognised the name of this teacher from long ago. To make sure it was him I asked if he went to Carmel school and he confirmed it. He showed no signs of recognising me and I don't remember whether he even asked my name. He still appeared to be leading a charmed life. Many friends around him even then in first year and car to drive around fully paid for by his rich parents. Add jealousy to my list of deficiencies.

When we're taught math, we're left with confidence to solve abstract problems with large numbers. I'm not sure what skill my early teachers gave me. I know I have a boiling, seething ocean of hate, despair and anger and no outlet for it. There is so much of the stuff that I'm drowning in despair and depression from all the saved up emotional sludge. All I learned was that it's OK to hate me and exclude me. That's what I've been doing ever since.

Holiday in Israel

2008-05-05T20:43:00.006+01:00

The husband and I are on holiday in Israel. My parents have lived here for three and a half years now and this is the first time we've visited them here. They've always come to us in London before now. We're having a fantastic time. The food is great, the spring weather is spectacular (bright sunny 26 Celsius days), the men are way hot (except for the weird Hasidim) and being clean shaven seems to be the exception. Needless to say The Husband, who has a thing for fur, is in heaven. I realise how much I miss the bright sunshine and dry heat of Africa. I'm just loving the brightness and seeing my skin turn a light nutty brown from the sun. Our clothing has the crisp dryness of the sun.

Dad's driving is whimsical. The other drivers on the road are sheer lunatics. Speed limits are defined by the maximum power output of one's car's engine. Road signs with numbers on them vary from decoration to suggestion, apparently. Parking is laissez faire as shown in the pictures below (look for the white painted lines and the disabled sign). Dad has applied his best efforts to assimilation thus making my poor mum neurotic. The drive from the moshav where they live in to Jerusalem was a bit like the Goon Show. Dad acting the clown on the road and mum shouting like a harpy at every false move by other drivers, getting angry at Dad for other people's craziness on the road.

I've always been the outsider. When we moved from Zimbabwe when I was aged five, I was the new kid at school. I went from the Carmel Jewish school in Bulawayo to the Carmel school in Pretoria so I was still among other Jews, only the ones in Pretoria all apparently came from fabulously wealthy families. They were all diamond merchants, industrialists or owners of a chain or retail stores in Pretoria and I became the poor kid. It became galling to see my snobbish peers being dropped off at school in luxury cars (and I mean Rolls Royce and Ferraris) then loosing their pocket money on the playground and not realising it. I realised how this must distress our teachers too since as they called out for the person missing the pocket money, it will likely have amounted to one of the teacher's day's wages. I could see disquiet on their faces but wasn't old enough to recognise shock, disgust and envy.

These spoiled children teased me and alienated me. Many of them would not even speak to me in class or on the play ground. At break time I sat by myself or played with kids from other years. When birthday invitations were given out I grew used to being missed out. I received some and looking back I reckon this was because a servant obtained a class list and wrote the invitations for the whole class. Can't be sure though. I hated being there. At one point an Israeli kid took to beating me up in a violent temper tantrum for no reason I could discern. He was new in school that last year I spent at Carmel. Perhaps the other kids put him up to it. I just don't know. My school work almost stopped and I started faking illness just about every week. Serious parent teacher meetings ensued about my failing school work. Serious heart to heart discussions with my dad followed. His advice to me regarding the bullying was to hit back hard (fighting tips included.) I just couldn't take it anymore and considered running away from home for about half a year while constantly begging my parents to take me out of that horrid school.

After my fifth year of school, my older brother finished his schooling and he was drafted into military service in South Africa. This presented my mum (who drove us to school each day) with an opportunity to come to my rescue. Since I was the only child still going to school, it would be much cheaper to send me to the local government school, saving driving time and petrol to take us an hour each way in and out from the expensive private Jewish school. She prevailed on my dad (bless her) and I was released from that torment. With it I closed a nasty chapter of my life. I wasn't able to deal with these really tough emotions aged 10 and so I pushed them into a little corner of myself neatly wrapped up in a box. With it I boxed my associations with Judaism. If being Jewish meant being like those awful hateful people, I wanted nothing at all to do with it. I successfully gave all things Jewish the widest possible berth for the next 4 years. At the many subsequent schools I went to (we moved town with my dad's work frequently) I got used to being the new kid, then the new Jewish kid and eventually, the new Jewish gay kid. At an appropriate time dad suggested that I learn the necessary things for Bar Mitzva and I agreed to be a dutiful son. One meeting with a Rabbi came and went but since we were in a rural town, these things were difficult to organise and nothing more came of it. I felt no enthusiasm for the project at all and was certainly not going to bring it up. To this day I have not completed Bar Mitzva.

Suddenly being around so many ordinary Jewish people, a whole country of them, I feel really good. It's reminded me of the good associations. I finally feel a part of a nation somewhere. These feelings are tentative, like a new bloom just opening. It's the first few touches on a horrible, broken past. I've built up a huge room in my head with boxes and boxes of hurt and anger, resentment and rejection that I have never had the time, space, emotional maturity or understanding to deal with.

Maybe I started to open one of the oldest and darkest boxes.

Catchy Title Here

2008-04-27T22:54:00.004+01:00

Ehh... I suppose I should start doing this again. Not sure why. Maybe I'll discover that as I do it. I think I'm having a mid-life crisis, which would be terribly disappointing since I'm only 33. Maybe I've been rushing to this point and afterward I can take it easy. Hopefully that way I'll live beyond 66!

The Husband and I were summoned for dancing, at the call of a friend, to the RVT last night. It was nice to get out, see some friends and shake a leg. At Duckie we bumped into Howard Hardiman and the Jonatron of Coterie of Zombies fame. They're a smiley lovely couple and hanging around with them added nicely to the evening. Around 1am Howard did say that they were going to a 5km fun run at 9am that day. My first impression was that senility had warped what he'd said. My second impression was that old age and loud music have finally caught up with me and my ears betrayed me. I asked for confirmation (possible signs of stupidity or incredulity painted on my face) and H did admit that dancing the night away before a fun run might not be the wisest choice, unless you're happy to have your fun long before the run. He then added that the Jonatron will be traversing the 5km course on stilts. (Picture of old wooden planks with handles up to armpits style stilts in my head) It just got better and better! At this point I nodded and smiled and thought my midlife crisis was possibly a better affliction that whatever trip they were on. Alas, today's post reveals that the "stilts" are indeed Powerisers, a not too shabby way to traverse 5km quickly. So I am probably the most crazy of the lot. For the moment anyway.

Had friends over for a dinner party tonight. Wild boar burgers (from Waitrose) were utterly delicious although I messed up the potatos. They seemed cooked when applying the knife test but were still crunchy on the dinner plate. :-( Yuck. Nice wines etc. Our friend Shane heads back to Australia this Thursday after his 2 year stint in London. The dinner party is our way to say farewell to the bloke. I think The Husband will miss dear Shane quite a bit. Shane's a really relaxed and easy going kinda guy which my man really needs. I think I'm high maintenance at the moment. Emotionally speaking. That's a clever way of saying: a wreck. I'm used to bottling up all the emotions I can't deal with so I have lots of barriers up to stop my shit spilling over. It might have the added effect of keeping others out at the same time, Husbands included. So maybe I don't appear High Maint, just quiet, reserved and intelligent. Closed mouth gathering no foot and all that but I'm basically a wreck.

Today I have new friends , a friend who will go back home to the other side of the planet and an enduring need to deal with my noisy head. Oh fuck.

Time for Another Tatt

2007-11-11T10:15:00.000Z

It's been ages since I got my first tattoo. I've been considering, on and off, what to get for my next one. I was warned that ink is addictive and since the first tatt, I've been keen for another. My first one adorns my left inner forearm with a Buddhist mantra written in beautiful Tibetan script. A kind of post-it note that's very hard to loose if you will. It reminds me of a particular meditation we practice.

I don't feel strongly yet about the content of the tattoo but I am leaning toward something biomechanical on my right ribs and right arm inner bicep. Somehow the character of the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz resonates with me. I feel like a broken machine inside sometimes and besides being pretty, a nice biomech tatt would be like being able to see some of the metaphorical machine parts inside.

Which reminds me of this hillarious alternate ending for the Wizard of Oz that I saw on a friend's facebook profile the other day:

Rowr

2007-10-28T19:05:00.000Z

So I've upgraded my beloved iMac to OS X Leopard and it's OK. I used virtual desktops extensively on my 486 Unix desktop back in 1995 and it was very useful in my work environment but I found that I'm not using Spaces in MacOS nearly as much as I thought. Perhaps this is because I use my home machine differently to the way that I use my work machine. I don't have a backup drive yet but I'm really looking forward to using Time Machine. I had defined a few backup sets with the old backup software that was dished out with .Mac but that wasn't nearly as good a solution as Time Machine promises to be. Sometimes it's the small things that really make me happy. When using spotlight the application whose name matches my search is now the default so there's one less keystroke for starting apps using spotlight. Neat! I use the dock a bit but I'm not a huge fan. So far no serious bugs so I'm generally happy.

On the down side, the new folder icons are a crap flat blue. I was using Snow.E Aqua for my icon set and the icons are just beautiful. Pixadex is still working fine but Candybar is very unhappy to find itself running on Leopard. I suppose that's reasonable since icon management within the OS may have changed a bit and they don't want to screw your system up when they're not sure. Panic.com are working on an upgrade to Candybar which they hope to release before the end of November. I suppose I can live with ugly folder icons until then.

Worst let down so far? The starwars hologram effect didn't ship with the new iChat. Why on earth demo such a cool effect, knowing that it was the coolest effect and then just plain leave it out of the final product? Needless to say, lots of fellow upgraders are gutted to find this feature missing and at least one enterprising youngster (with nothing better to do) is recreating it for mass consumption. Good man. Mac owning Star Wars nerds everywhere salute you.

Writing is good for you

2007-10-12T09:59:00.000+01:00

I picked up a Healthy For Men magazine during my last purchase at our local Holland and Barratt store. On page 5 of the October/November 2007 edition is a short article about how therapeutic writing improves the overall wellbeing of cancer patients. I did some more digging today and found a Guardian article from 2002 about the power of therapeutic writing. So there you have it. Blogging is good for you.

Since I'm at home today, off sick from work with the dreaded lurgy, I 'm going to use some of this time to write. Who knows, it might make me feel better.

MBA Thesis

2007-10-08T11:53:00.001+01:00

It's been a while since my last post. My MBA thesis is eating up my time but I think it's going well. The project is M&A related and I'm getting some great exposure to senior M&A practitioners at the firm as a result. My project sponsor at the firm had a look at the first draft of data reports and asked me to chat to 3 other senior bankers about the results.

One of those meetings was on Thursday last week. I think it went well. Mostly. A 30 minute meeting was scheduled but our chat actually lasted 50 minutes so he was clearly interested. He could only poke one hole in my data. I had extracted M&A deal data from a Thomson system and I explained my extraction criteria to him but he still felt that the number of deals in my sample was way too small. He showed me a BCG report about the recent upsurge in M&A activity that mentioned a cumulative deal figure about 10 times higher than the data I collected indicated.

Having thought about it over the weekend, I expect that this can be explained by my criteria including publicly disclosed deal values. The banker felt that private deals are only a small percentage of the market but then he could be surprised. One set of interesting data from 2003 he discounted as fantasy until I pointed out the deal details. Since the deals in those 3 months were quite extraordinary, I thought it best to go armed with the details in case of such a dismissal.

Of course, Thomson's data might also be factually wrong, which would really annoy me.