[with a z] ...
the evolution of communication
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13.
on the phone.
day and night.
never alone.
17.
letters wrote.
answer back.
exchanging notes.
24.
i’m still here.
if u need me.
pager’s near.
29.
call my cell.
voice message if
i fail to hear.
33.
email ease.
i check it daily
what’s yours please?
38.
i’m still here.
on myspace leave a comment.
clear?
41.
twitter dumb
twitter dee.
one line says it all for me.
44.
just IM cuz
digsby’s my
communi-hub.
Tags: beeper, commication, decrease, digsby, downfall, electronics, evolution, facebook, letters, mail, myspace, pager, phone, poem, poetry, shrinking, society, technology, twitter, vox, writing
tunics, sweater dresses and cardigans!
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i absolutely love the styles for this fall and winter. there is such variety available in line, fabric, and overall design. for once, it seems like there is something that almost anyone with any body type of any age can wear.
my personal favorites are the sweater dress, tunic and/or cardigan. i have bought two sweater type tunics and they are so comfortable and hide all my trouble spots! however, i have noticed that the size has to be right. a bit too small and an unsightly silhouette appears; a bit too big and one can easily look pregnant! being short, the 3/4 sleeve looks best on me t-shirt and long sleeves tend to emphasize it. sleeveless also works on me well. if you are thin, the thicker sweater knits will look great on you but for someone a bit more curvy, i recommend the thinner knits.
besides comfort, one of my favorite things about tunics is that they can be so easily layered; perfect for the changing weather here in houston. i love to pair them with leggings, tights and even jeans. a smooth pant works best so as to avoid zipper and/or button closure bumps .they are also great with skirts but i think you need to be tall or at least of average height to pull that off.
here are a few that really like. there are so many that i just added the first few that caught my eye.
- urban outfitters bd gargylevictoria
- victoria’s secret featherweight henely baby doll hoodie,
- free people “moonlight” sweater dress
- free people sweater tunic in brown
Tags: areas, average, cardigan, clothes, color, comfortable, couture, design, dress, dressing, fabric, fall, fashion, favorite, hide, houston, juniors, knits, ladies, layering, leggings, lines, macys, misses, outfits, petites, picks, problem, secret, skirts, soft, styles, sweater, talls, tights, trends, tunic, update, victorias, vivid, wardrobe, winter, women, womens
power surge temporarily disables introvert
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edvard munch’s “the scream”
i am an introvert. according to the myers-briggs type indicator, that means i get my energy from within. and what that means is that no matter how much i like them, people, especially extroverts, draw energy from me. a simple concept with many implications….
case in point. last night i totally lost my mind. i mean lost as in, it wasn’t there. i could not think. i could not remember anything. i was literally walking in circles. my mind felt fried. why? my introversion? asperger’s? anxiety?
well, the day started with me being a bit stressed because i had friends coming over [a couple and their 4-yr-old child] . i do not really have people over but i had been to their house so much and they had been so gracious that i knew it was “my turn”. plus, the guy was going to look at and fix the brakes on my volvo saving me about a thousand dollars. ok, so that much i figured i could handle, and if the kids played nice and quietly, might even enjoy. i pictured my friend and i sitting peacefully on the couch, her husband at work in my garage and the kids upstairs cooking imaginary food in the play kitchen.
this did not happen.
the couple [both extroverts] appeared stressed when they got here. they were bickering and going in and out of the door taking turns smoking [i hate smoke and the noise of doors opening and closing]. but, i really count these people as friends so it was fine. the man soon left to get his tools [which he had forgotten] and change clothes and was to be back in about 20 minutes. he did not show up for several hours, leaving his wife upset and in a worse mood. to add to that, the poor woman had a headache. we tried to watch a movie but the one she chose was pans labyrinth and i had forgotten it was subtitled. neither of us felt like reading a movie so that ended quickly.
i failed to mention that just a few minutes before they arrived, my 22-year-old daughter [another extrovert and at times, drama queen] called and needed rescuing from a restaurant about 30 miles away… telling me she was stuck for 5.5 hours and she hated her life and needed a ride. i told her i had company coming [who did not have cell phones] and i could not get away, making me feel a bit guilty and even more anxious. i am sure a bit of this was normal maternal worry – the rest just me.
meanwhile, back at the house, we were still waiting for brakeman to return and our kids started playing very loud and running up and down the stairs. i corrected my usually very well-behaved son and she tried to calm her daughter with no success. at the same time, my 11-year-old daughter returned from a sleepover with a friend and decided that they would both hang out at our house. this involved a loud walkie-talkie that her friend carries everywhere, periodic giggling [which is not bad but added to the already rising noise quotient] ,blaring songs from the internet and more door opening and closing and stair running.
about that time, my best friend called me from out of state telling me she was feeling down. i was really concerned about her but the day had already rendered me feeling unable to help or even talk much. she knew i had company and hung up quickly although i told her it was ok which, through absolutely no fault of hers, added to my guilt, stress, and mounting anxiety.
ding, dong. ding dong. what now? a lady i did not know at the front door. it was my daughters friend’s mother who had decided [very nicely] to come over and introduce herself. i invited her in and attempted to include my other friend in our conversation but felt very pulled and distracted as we talked. she stayed about 45 minutes during which time my other friend was making multiple phone calls to her husband [in the same room] asking where he was and pacing back and forth. about that time the kids came down hungry. my daughters friend’s mother left and then brakeman came back, without tools or supplies, saying he couldn’t get the brake parts because he was $1.98 short. i then had the option of packing up everyone in my house and going to the store myself or just saying forget it. i said forget it and made plans to do it later.
more smoking.
more doors opening and closing; sometimes slamming.
i think i was beginning to act like a senior with dementia.
i fed the kids, offered to drive the couple by the bank [long story] and left my daughter cooking ramen, which at the time of my departure, she had already messed up by putting the pasta in before the water boiled and so i had to help her start all over…
i got in the car; happy to be alone with my son and no one else. then… my cell phone started ringing. omfg i thought i was going to literally go crazy. i managed to get through the bank thing, get home, get my kids in bed, shower, and then stare blankly at the tv for about 5 minutes before falling fast asleep.
today, i feel physically beat-up, my mind is less than alert [and that is an understatement] and i have absolutely no energy. i honestly think i am going to have to regulate my social interaction [especially with extroverts]. that seems so horrible but i do not seem able to function with such overload.
oh yeah, and the printer broke. twice. grape jelly fell on my almost-white carpet. and my son’s adorable but rambunctious playmate tried to saw my white walls with a toy tool. oh, and the drilling! i almost forgot about the drilling. the kids were playing with toy drills all day and this loud wiggles guitar; something my son never cares much to play with when he is alone. errrgh.
obviously, this is a venting blog and one that i am sure is more for me than anyone else.
even writing this was exhausting.
so now, i am going to take my son [who starts preschool in 2 days yay!] and grab a coffee, plan nothing else for the rest of the month, and try to recover.
if anyone involved in yesterday’s circus reads this, know i love you but i have some idiosyncrasies that if i do not respect, leave me pretty much disabled, if only temporary.
i posted the song below because a quiet mind is what i need now and i can honestly say my husband is one of about 3 people on earth that has this effect on me. the other two should know who you are.
this is actually lipsync to blue october; but all the concert videos are terrible as well as the anime ones.
Tags: aspergers, aspie, blog, blue, brain, energy, extrovert, forgetfulness, friends, friendship, interaction, introvert, mind, much, multi-task, myers-briggs, october, overwhelmed, quiet, relationships, scream, too, vent, venting, youtube
difficult conversations or “wait….translate”
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difficult conversations can happen when one ventures outside of the culture[s] within which one immerses oneself. they can also happen when one uses the word one too much in a blog entry lol. so, one would think the key to making these conversations less difficult would be to commit oneself to learning everything about the cultural context of the person with which you plan to communicate. further clarification of the word culture is needed here. i am not referring to the common groups of people or environments commonly associated with the term culture [such as ethnicity, religion, nationality , etc]. i am referring more to the combination of influences and daily habits that become so ingrained in our lives that we do not even realize they are probably viewed by some as unusual and misunderstood or in some cases, not even defined.
case in point: communicating with my mother. i recently had a phone conversation with her [which, with me being a bit phonaphobic tends to make conversation stilted in even the smoothest of interactions]. in this particular conversation, i found myself stopping my flow of talk almost constantly as i realized that i was about to mention something my mother had no idea about and that i would need to translate this into a more familiar and, in her case, less threatening form.
examples:
i began to talk about my son’s upcoming birthday party and she asked me about gifts. i promptly [and somewhat absentmindedly] answered that his wish list was on amazon. she did not know what amazon was. ok.. so translate…. a list of gifts on line where people can go to see them…. but ok translate…. that is is safe and private and that no one that i don’t let see the list can see the list, etc….ok, too complicated, i just brought the list up on my computer and read it off to her. whew! that was hard work.
i told her i had taken a great picture of my daughter. she asked me to get copies made when i developed them. ok… wait, translate…. they were taken with a digital camera, i can send her a dvd… wait, no i can’t, she doesn’t have a computer. i can print a copy out for her, yes, and asked her what size it needed to be…. to which she replied… whatever size you have left. ? huh? oh, ok, wait….. translate. she’s thinking of those photo sets in which one gets various sizes of pictures in a package., next.. me: i can print you out whatever size you need. reply from mom: well, you just do what is easiest. ? ok. give up. i decided just to send her a 5X7 since I know she has a lot of frames that size.
she asked about my son and daughter-in-law and wanted to know when the last time i talked to them was. i told her i talked to my son the other day and she was so excited that he had called me. ok, wait…. translate,…i didn’t actually “talk” to him; i I’M=ed… wait, translated…. wrote back and forth with him… on the computer. yeah, that was good.
my mother is a smart lady but obviously not a part of the intenet culture. the conversation i had with her made me realize how much i still tend to assume others are up to or into the same activities, verbiage, and that i am. i thought i was pretty universal and could talk to and understand pretty much everyone [in english, that is] by understanding their culture and where they come from. in other words, if someone does something differently, that doesn’t make it bad or unacceptable, it makes it different, it is their familiar, their culture. what i need to work on now is understanding culture in a broader sense and that is why i wrote this blog {which, by the way, was another concept i needed to explain during that phone call].
and i wish my mother would get a computer lol.
Tags: wordpress, facebook, blog, children, generation, generational, gap, culture, internet, web, technology, text, youtube, myspace, vox, mother, communication, translate, techojargen, technoese, talking, phone, phonaphobe, phoneaphobic, cultures, computer, conversations, difficult, interaction, wait, expand, im, frustration, email, digital, camera, wish, my, get
first responders & their families
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courtesy of first responder magazine
my husband is a first responder. so is my son. many people’s husbands, wives, sons, daughters, and family are first responders. this may mean they are a police officer, a firefighter, an ems technician, an ambulance driver, in the military, or even one of many, many support services that keep all these occupations [and many others] operating. whoever the first responder is, they put a lot on the line and there’s generally no argument about that. they have made commitments to put the safety and welfare of others ahead of themselves. they are, no doubt, the everyday hero’s of our world.
yet…. i never realized what exactly the families of some of these first responders go through.
i understand everyday what it is like to kiss a husband in law enforcement goodbye never knowing what the day will bring. however, this past fall, i understood what it was like to watch your military son leave to serve his country in iraq. and this past month, when hurricane ike hit houston, i understood the burden of responsibilities that fall upon the families of these first responders when they are away on extended shifts taking care of everyone else’s families.
for almost 3 weeks, my husband worked 12 hour plus shifts, often bunking at his station because there was no time to make the 45 minute turned 3 hour commute home and return back again on time [due to debris, flooding, and road closures]. i was left with a damaged house to clean up, kids to take care of, and a numerous host of things that in ordinary circumstances, would be difficult enough with him at home. we had no power and we were told the drinking water was not safe. we had to try to find food as we had been advised to stock up for only 72 hours. well, 72 hours turned into weeks. i have a daughter with diabetes who must have her insulin and whose insulin must be kept cold. i have rheumatoid arthritis but had to pick up, in some cases, whole trees, and move them to a safer place as designated by our community association. my children and i raked the yard for 3 days only to redo it all over again each morning thereafter as nightly winds scattered more debis across the neighborhood. we ate cold canned food, went to bed at sundown and got up at sunrise.
please don’t take this the wrong way, i am not complaining! i am thankful that we were not injured, the damage to our home and neighbors was not worse, and we all came out of it ok [which many, unbeknown as a result of the almost absent media coverage, did not] . complaining isn’t what this blog is about. i am simply relaying one story, my story, as an example of what millions of first responders families go though.
to break it down a little, let’s take just one institution of first response: hpd. the houston police department employees over 5,000 officers. that is 5,000 families who were without a family member during this [and many other] crises. multiply this by all the differing professions that first responders occupy, taking into account all of the crisis interventionists, per se, in all the world and you have a whole bunch of families that end up in need themselves. families that for the most part, never complain, never ask for special assistance, and in fact, forgo much help in order to allow their first responder to do his or her duty. and, might i add, this, in addition, to the fear such families often face regarding the fate of their responder during the crisis itself, is an issue that needs some attention.
i heard a really sad story during hurricane ike [and there were and continue to be many], but this one was about a first responder, a police officer and his family nonetheless. no, he wasn’t injured physically but you could say he was injured financially, socially, and i’m sure, motivationally. this police officer, who shall go unnamed, called his station to report that a huge tree had fallen though the roof of his house and that he needed to attend to it to ensure the safety of his family. his supervisor’s response was that he must “come in” or suffer the consequences. well… he chose to make sure that his family and kids were safe, their belongings protected from the elements, and that they had somewhere to sleep. as a result, he was suspended.suspended, i am sure, without pay and his record blemished for the rest of his career.
in the ‘duty to put others first”, do these families not count?
something is wrong here.
somewhere, somehow, we need to learn to take care of each other and in doing so, not forget the caretakers themselves.
Tags: aid, ambulance, american, arthritis, career, caretakers, children, complaining, concern, concerns, cop, debris, democracy, department, diabetes, disasters, doctor, driver, each, ems, fairness, family, fire, firemen, first, flooding, here, houston, hpd, humanity, hurricane, ike, insulin, iraq, is, justice, kids, media, military, natural, nurse, officers, other, police, political, post, priorities, protect, proxy, public, responders, rheumatoid, sad, serve, service, shifts, social, station, story, suspension, unnoticed, welfare, what, world, wrong
shoes to hurt your feet for and some tips to make them more wearable
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- issac mizrahi ariel patent oxford booties
![mossimo red velda mj oxford pumps [more of a burgundy]](http://lezleevictoriah.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/mossimoredveldamjoxfordpumps.jpg?w=260&h=260 "mossimoredveldamjoxfordpumps")
- mossimo red velda mj oxford pumps
![mossimo red velda mj oxford pumps [more of a burgundy]](http://lezleevictoriah.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/mossimoredveldamjoxfordpumps.jpg "mossimoredveldamjoxfordpumps")
here are two pairs of shoes i purchased for this fall and winter. i like them because they seem so versatile; they will look great with tights or socks, dresses or pants. kudos to in the wabe for recommending the black bootie shoe. i usually stay away from heels because they can be rather painful when you have rheumatoid arthritis, but sometimes, they are just so cute, you can’t resist!
here’s a hint for people with foot problems…. buy the shoes 1/2 to a whole size larger so that your entire foot can spread out. use cushioned pads to take up any extra space that may occur on the top or back of the shoe. the key, at least for me, seems to be fitting the toe bed and upper part of the foot first, then making accommodations until the rest of the shoe fits. now i can wear heels again. but never, never, never again while walking the cobblestone of rome. that was just, well dumb.
Tags: autumn, fall, dresses, socks, tights, red, shoes, comfort, footwear, bed, toe, arthritis, mossimo, oxfords, pumps, in, the, wabe, hurt, feet, foot, target, issac, booties, black, burgendy, buckle, mizrahi, ariel, sizing, picks, winter, pants, skirts, heels, solutions, cute, velda, mj, walking, rome, cobblestone, wearable
neural pathways and the decrease of novelty
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first of all, this is by no means meant to be a scientific or research-oriented blog but rather an attempt to give voice [or pen] to a thought i had recently. i am sure there are scientific studies that could quantify this thought and draw conclusions to the positive or negative but that is not the purpose of this entry. graduate school, for me, has ended. sometimes a person just needs to think out loud and that is precisely what i am going to do here.
where to start?
over the past few years, i have become increasingly aware of my inability to show or feel either emotional or cognitive responses in a variety of contexts. moreover, when responses are elicited, they do not seem to be at the same level or intensity as they appear to be for others, or for me in past occurrences. for example; i am not easily amused [especially to the point of laughing out loud], i am not impressed by much [be it talent, money, material possessions, art or the like], i seem to have bouts of passion that are single-focused to the exclusion of almost everything else in my environment, and i simply cannot enjoy myself or have as much fun as i see others having or have had myself, in the past.
am i depressed? no [and this has been clinically verified]. am i just a boring person? i really don’t think so [this has not been a lifelong characteristic]. am i perhaps, just getting older and thus less likely to respond to life with the intensity i once did? i rather doubt it given that so many seniors seem to be able to get even more pleasure or intensity of experience out of even the simplest of things.
case in point. i will and can list most, if not all, of the situations that have elicited a strong or more appropriately, significantly measurable [be it positive or negative] response from me over the past (4) years: the birth of my youngest son, the almost-kidnapping of my youngest daughter [ but that's a story for another blog], the turbulent relationship i had with a friend, coming really close to picking up and moving across the country, a weekend in albuquerque with my biological father, seeing italy with my oldest son and daughter [and now daughter-in-law [ who could not be moved by venice, rome and the beautiful cinque terrre?], my son going to and returning from iraq, my daughter’s diabetes diagnosis, i am sure i have left out a few things but these are foremost in my mind and therefore probably the strongest. hurricane ike, which recently came through houston causing horrible damage to both galveston and 29 area counties did elicit a sort of quiet awe, but not the excitement or panic i would have imagined and had sort of looked forward to.
what i am thinking [short of ptsd which could be a possibility] is that perhaps we, as a people and nation, are exposed to so much, so soon, that hardly anything is a novelty anymore, hence, new neural pathways do not form, the ones we already possess are just strengthened. i would posit that is is the creation of these new pathways by totally nouveau stimuli that elicit reactions, at least in me, to the point to where they are significant. for example, you may never have been to paris, but how many times do we see it pictured in books, on television, and in movies? the point being… you have seen it. sure, it’s different when you go and actually walk the streets of paris, but it is my belief that the experience will be muted at least slightly from prior exposure. reading my personal lists above, i find one thing in common. nothing prepared me for any of these things, they were surprises that i had not encountered before, and in several of the cases, could not even imagine myself imagining, if that makes sense. i was never a history or a geography buff so i was so amazed at the places i visited in italy. venice and rome were spectacular, but one place produced a response of feeling and cognition in me so strong i cannot put words to it. cinque terre. and when i think about it, it was the one place i had not only never heard of, but had little if any exposure to photographs, information or the like. i didn’t know what to expect. a new neural pathway was formed.
- cinque terre, italy
sure, i might be wrong about all of this. i may just be demonstrating increasingly asperger’scharacteristics, i may be responding to prior stresses in my life with a sort of ptsd reaction, or i might just have a very high threshold for response. but, i know one thing. the less i know about something, the more i react to it and with greater intensity that appears proportional to the exposure and likelihood of the event in my life.
just a simple thought turned blog.
Tags: asperger, aspergers, thinking, neural, pathways, connections, novelty, stimuli, ptsd, depression, responses, intensity, experience, cinque, terre, emotion, cognition, preparation, exposure, creation, brain, me, mind, aging, psychology, stress, reaction, characteristics
