Wednesday, September 24, 2014

What hiatus? I never went anywhere!

Well, a lot has happened in my life since I last posted here. Hard to believe it's been more than two years since I last left any kind of note here.

I'm going to try to post more, at the cost of my posts likely being shorter, haha! After all, there are definitely more SPD blogs out there than their used to be. I'll use this place as a spot to talk about, well, me.

As I said, a lot has changed since I last wrote a line here, and no, it's not just me getting older! My life has really taken off in many ways: I've got a new job, I've got a new place that I'm living, I've got a new car, I've got some new friends, and I've learned to start loving and taking better care of myself.

Because keeping secrets and hiding myself away only did me harm in the past, I feel now is a perfect time to openly admit to whatever followers out there who are following (and probably forgot about) me, I am gay.

I didn't figure this out until early last year, but it's been a startling revelation to me that has really opened me up to new experiences and, well, love. No, I'm not with anyone at the moment, but before I found out I was gay, I felt like I was perpetually going to be stuck in a never-ending limbo where I am always looking for 'the right lady' and subsequently never like what I'm seeing.

To realize that my biological urges actually swing the complete opposite way, well, I suddenly realize that I have met people I was interested it, that I have been attracted to people, and that I have even fallen in love with people before. I just never opened myself up to realize that my feelings were for certain members of my own gender, haha.

Well, I'm out, and while I'm not necessarily one to go about shouting it out or anything, I feel online is the perfect avenue for me to once again gradually warm up toward the idea that I could be a more socially involved person, haha!

I'll write more later to inform about other things going on in my life, but for now, just glad to finally say something after so long, lol. Thanks for sticking around!

Thursday, August 23, 2012

A Mid-August Rumbling

You know, it's pretty frustrating. I haven't posted anything here in almost a solid year. There's a reason for it though: I feel partly disconnected.

I often can't think of what to say when given an open floor and no specific topic to focus on. I think about posting here, and I realize I have nothing significant to say, or I have several significant things to say, but realize that they probably aren't 'publisher quality', which is how I like all my posts to be.

Originally, this blog was going to be a hub for adult SPD blogs, but that idea has long since been cast aside. Running the sites that I do on top of work, school, and the chat room has been more than enough to keep me busy and eat up all the spare time that would go to the projects like this blog.

It used to be that topics would burn in my head until I couldn't do anything but write about them, and I'd post these large posts on SPD-related subjects. I feel burnt-out in some ways I guess. It's not that I've lost passion, it's just that I took on way too many projects. I've been trying to reduce them, but it's been a difficult balance.

I wanted to be a key resource, one of the people that people referred adults with SPD to for support, and in many ways, I feel as though I have succeeded. At the same time though, I often don't feel like it's been enough, especially when I consider all the people over the years who told me they'd love to get a copy of my first book about SPD when I wrote it. Well, I still haven't written it.

I even wrote a completely unrelated comedy book with my friend Jem Lewis, called America's Mafia. Don't get me wrong, I loved writing that book, and I love the finished product. Jem (or JT), has been a great friend, one of the only ones I've had in my real life circle. Still though, at the end of the day, I realize I haven't done what I set out to do, which was to become perhaps the foremost resource on the topic of adult SPD.

Perhaps I set the bar too high, or perhaps I reached it real quickly and can't come up with an encore. What I realize in all of this though, is that the issue isn't where I set the bar so much as it is the focus of the goal: it's all self-centered.

Enough of that! In the end, no one is going to care whether or not I was 'the foremost in adult SPD'. In fact, the whole thing will be debatable. What's important is whether or not I'm happy, whether or not I'm making good friends and thriving in my life.

I have to say, even though I have allowed parts of my original SPD goals to slip lately, it has allowed me to separate myself from my goals, to work on becoming a person who is not only defined by his goals. If I only defined myself by my goals, and I was always setting higher goals, I would always feel unfinished and inferior. My life has improved in many other ways, so I feel as though the tradeoff has been worth it.

I am still working on a book for adults with SPD. It has just been delayed for a long time, but I hope to get some time in on it this fall and winter.


I'm not sure how profound this is or how much of a point it has, but I guess that's just what a rambling post is for, eh? :P

Monday, November 28, 2011

America's Mafia - First Book Completed!

Well guys, as you may recall by my last posts, I have been working with a good friend of mine, J.E.M. Lewis, on a book for the past several months. I am proud to say that the first book is completely written, edited, and ready to be shopped around to agencies!

I want to thank those of you who have been with me all these years; you're being here has helped me to become who I am and continues to help me as I go along.

Along with the book, we have also released a website:
http://americasmafia.com/index.shtml

Feel free to stop by and, if you have a Facebook account, click the "Like" button in the top right corner. That is, if you like what you see, hehe.

No, this is not the first book I thought I would write, but now that it is, I am proud of myself and my esteemed co-author, J.E.M. Lewis. Thanks everyone for the support!

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Update 2: The Summer

Well, the lazy blogger is at it again. I believe it's been over two months since I said I'd be posting another update soon. Well, I guess I'm not great at keeping up with that pace. One thing leads to another, and pretty soon, I'm way behind.

So, here is the story of April through September, in quick blow-by-blows:

April
Was a very interesting month for me, indeed! I will focus on just the highlights. Perhaps the best thing to to happen in April was my opportunity to meet Carol Kranowitz. That's right, I got to meet the lady who wrote the 'SPD bible,' "The Out-of-Sync Child." I was at OT one day and noticed a flier declaring she was coming to town. As luck would have it, she was actually coming to *my* school!

So, on Monday, April 11, I was able to spend pretty much an entire day in the Morris Lawrence building at Washtenaw Community College, attending a presentation by Kranowitz, herself. I couldn't miss the opportunity to go up and speak to her personally. I made sure to thank her for publishing my article in the Spring 2009 edition of SI Focus. I also offered her my services in any future projects she had, and she told me I might be able to come in handy in the near future, after all. I relished the chance to snag a quick picture of myself with her, too, of course.

Sure, I had to miss a day of work and spend fifteen dollars (or whatever it was) to see her, but that was a very small price to pay, in my mind. ;)

As far as school went during April, it progressed quite smoothly. I put in the finishing touches on all my assignments and got relatively high marks. I ended up finishing my Internet Professional requirements, meaning I now have all the credits I need to get my Associate's Degree in the INP field!

However, if April seems like it was a great month, and it was, it wasn't without its own difficulties. Primarily, my car was stolen! That's right; I parked it in front of the house one afternoon after work, and when I woke up the next morning, it was gone. No shattered glass, no debris, no car. I filed a report at the police station, and a few days later I received a phone call that my car had been found, stripped of all its critical parts, in an impound lot in Detroit. So, from that point on, it's been nothing but getting rides and borrowing cars for me. (And no, insurance didn't cover anything because it was a used vehicle and I didn't pay the boatload of money I would have needed to to cover theft.)


The Summer
I'll combine my summer all into one heading because, well, it all felt like one big blur! I spent the entire summer working at the writing center and writing America's Mafia, which is now a book. That's right; what was a television series is now a series of books, as many as six, to be exact. JT and I hammered away at this task all summer. If it wasn't so late and I wasn't so tired, I'd get into it much deeper, but for now, let's just say it was an incredible experience, and we are currently trying to find a publisher for the work.

So, that's a real quick update for now. There was much more that happened, but I think I'll save the rest for another day. I just felt like I should share something with you all. :)

Friday, June 17, 2011

Update Part 1: March

Hi everyone,

It has been quite some time since I last updated things, hasn't it? Well, things have actually been going very well on my end, for the most part. I have just been so incredibly busy that I haven't had a chance to update things. So, let's review the months I've missed updating, shall we? I'll go month-by-month with my posting, since a lot has happened and this would be a simply mammoth post if I didn't.

March: Went fairly smooth. I continued to plug away on my Web Analytics and SEO class as well as my Web Graphics II course. I needed Web Graphics as the final required INP course in the INP associate's degree program, and Analytics was needed as my final INP-related elective credit. Neither of the classes were particularly fun, but I made my way through, nonetheless.

Also noteworthy is that I put in the initial stages of development on the new SPD Support website. I have been running SPD Parent SHARE and its articles/hosting sections for some time, as well as the forum on SPD International, and wanted to combine them onto one new site. I started developing the blueprints for the new site in March.

One small problem came up in March; I was pulled over by a police officer for the first time. Eep! I was headed to work one evening, and was surprised when the officer who had been a good distance behind me for the past few blocks suddenly put on his flashers and pulled up closer to me. I pulled over and was trying to keep from freaking out. Turns out the sticker on my license plate had been expired for a few months! I hadn't even noticed. Fortunately, I did not get a ticket, but was told to get the plate renewed, which I did the next day for about 70 bucks.

Another great thing happened in March though. I became closer in my friendship with JT Lewis. He is one of my fellow tutors at my school, Washtenaw Community College. We went to see several movies together during the month of March, which were pretty much the first times I had been to the cinema in years. We must have been to about 5 movies that month, which undoubtedly shatters my old record. We are also writing a book (was a TV show) together, and put in a lot of creative work on that during what spare time we had that month.

Want to see JT? Well, unlike me, he actually has a video of himself up on Youtube. Here is JT, my co-author, co-worker, and good friend:


Yes, he is an incredibly intelligent and animated individual with a very bright personality and a cheerful persona. Now, I say persona, because there is actually much more to him than meets the eye. To make a very long story (book in progress, actually) short, he has had one very difficult and challenging life. He is a product of Detroit's oh-so-wonderful (/sarcasm) foster "care" program, and his being alive today is something we can all draw inspiration from. I am very happy (oh who am I kidding? I'm thanking God!) to have finally made a friend in my vicinity who not only understands me in many ways most fail at, but who is also actually willing to put up with my quirks and meltdowns! :P


So, I believe that's just about it for what happened during the month of March. Well, that and more occupational therapy, Woot!

Up next: April!
(Hint: This next post should be the first time you ever see Carol Kranowitz and car robbery ever come up in the same post... anywhere! Totally unrelated events, of course, lol.)

Monday, February 28, 2011

Jury Duty tomorrow

Sorry I haven't been updating in quite some time. I've been busy still with work and school as usual.

Tomorrow, I will have a new test for my sensory processing abilities. I was summoned to court back in 2008, but I got out of it by sending in a letter that stated I had SPD, anxiety, depression, and a few other diagnoses. That was good enough to work for that, and I ended up not having to go in. Granted, that was only a few months after I began Sensory Integration based occupational therapy.

A few weeks ago, I received a letter from the district court, telling me I have again been summoned. What is it? Twice in 3 years? I'm assuming my not going in '08 put me on some sort of a short list to go back in.

So, this time, I'm faced with the decision of whether or not I should try to get out of it again, since I still carry those diagnoses, or if I want to rely on the benefits I have made so far in almost exactly 3 years of OT treatment to carry me through.

You know what? I'm feeling cocky, hehe. I tried to reschedule my jury duty for June, as I thought I had school on March 1st. Turns out, I forgot I actually have this week off for a bit of a winter break. So, I am missing neither work nor school to attend the initial jury selection.

So, people, please wish me luck. I am hoping things go well and that I am able to sit through things alright. I believe I've made a lot of progress, and hopefully it's enough to pull me through something like this. Glad to be making a new post here, as I keep forgetting to update it, lol.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

23 today :)

Just felt like I should leave a quick note that I am 23 as of this morning. Amazing to think I was still lost and in such a very different place just 3 years ago on my 20th. I am much happier to be where I am now though, surrounded and embraced by the SPD community.

So, what I'm up to today. Well, I'm going to a couple hockey games in a couple hours. College hockey. Every year on the 29th and 30th, 4 college hockey teams play a regular season tournament (the Great Lakes Invitational) at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, home of the Detroit Red Wings.  Once every few years, my dad gets tickets to at least one of these days for my birthday.  This year, he ended up with tickets to both days, all 4 games. So, I am going to be doing that today and tomorrow.

So, I have the good and the bad to look forward to.  It's great, because I love hockey, and love to watch it live. For someone who used to breathe hockey, this is truly what I like to be doing. Unfortunately, it is incredibly overwhelming. This is 4 hockey games in 2 days. A double header tonight and another double header tomorrow night.

How will I survive 4 hockey games in 2 days at a 20,000+ seating arena?

Well, one thing is obvious to me, noise! It will be loud, and every time someone scores, they blare an amazingly loud horn. So, I will be bringing two sets of earbuds, which are like ear plugs, but are even better because I can listen to music through them. I got a brand new 16GB Walkman mp3 player for Christmas, so I will be using that a lot! I still have my old 4GB GoGear, so I'll keep that in another pocket, should the battery die on my new one while I'm there.

My stomach has also been bugging me lately. So, I will be bringing Maalox in one pocket of my coat, as well as a bag of crackers should I not be up to the arena food.  I will also have a cold wet washcloth in that coat. Sounds crazy, I know, but it's needed. My ears start burning as I get overloaded, so if I press a cold wet cloth against them, they will cool down and it will help me avert a meltdown. I will also have a bottled water, but that will probably have to be in the car, since I doubt they'd let me bring that in with the no outside food or beverages policy (though I'm confident I'll be able to get the crackers in).

So, wish me the best guys. This should be tough, but I'm glad to be able to do it so long as I survive it. :P

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Code, Dew, and Death Threats

Well, just about an hour ago, I was busy pounding away on some code for my Coding III course (JavaScript, gag!).  I was getting pretty frustrated, as is typical when I go to work on this stuff. HTML and CSS made perfect sense to me, but JS is from another world.

At the same time, my mom was trying to clean the windows on the opposite end of my room (I sleep in the former attic of the house, so it's one big room, my space divided only by furniture.  She was turning on the vacuum cleaner intermittently. One minute of hypersensitivity inducing noise, then she would turn it off, go downstairs, come back up, and do it again. After a few rotations of this, and struggling to figure out the code while still maintaining a chat room, well...

I told her that it would be nice if she warned me before turning on the cleaner, which would give me enough time to get out my earbud headphones and protect myself from the meltdown-triggering noise.  She remembered my issue in that area, and agreed to remind me. Cool :).

Well, as time wore on, I got more and more uncomfortable, more stressed out, and more sensory defensive. Pretty soon, I was feeling myself starting to shut down; I wasn't able to move as well and could feel myself starting to turn snappy (mentally, don't know if anyone would have been able to see this).  Eventually, my mom asked me if I could help her with something, and I really wanted to do it, but my system was now officially fried. Poor mom, I just snapped at her and yelled out "WHAT?!?"

Well, I tried to calm back down and apologize, but she started talking, asking me when I was going to get out of her house.  The voice cut right through me though, I was pretty darn gone by now. I tried to get up to help her, walking across the ground, unable to even master the physical act of putting on my pants at that moment. I went over to help with her telling me now not to. When I made it there, she was done, so I headed back to my bed to try to relax myself desperately. 

Well, as I went to lay down, I (of course, dyspraxic as I am), I knocked over a glass of Mountain Dew that had been sitting by my bed. Well, not a glass, but a plastic cup, because I know better than to trust myself with glass, lol. Since the glass had been about half full (must be optimistic, eh? :-P), it managed to make quite the puddle at the base of my bed, spraying onto my bedsheets and a bunch of stuff I had on the floor.

Well, now I had had it. It was a mild meltdown, but became much larger after that. I quickly picked up the cup, and grabbed my heating pad off the floor where it had fallen. I took my heating pad and chucked it across the room (plug and all) into a fan that was sitting by my TV. I went over to the fan, picked it up, and then threw that down to the floor, in the good ole' search for proprioceptive input.

Then came the verbal effluence. I started swearing randomly and issuing death threats. No, I don't say I'm going to kill any 'body,' but I do say I'm going to kill some 'thing.'  Apparently, my cup was alive, and had children, because I was determined to kill them all. :-P
Damn cup! How dare he be where my arm was! I'll show him!

Anyhow, I grabbed some rags downstairs and headed back up to my room to soak up the Dew.  In route, I slammed into whatever walls I could. I tried to do things the right way that I recommend to others, and push myself off of the wall or give myself joint compressions, but lost it instead and nearly broke a couple doors and busted the rag drawer. 

When I got back to finally lay down, my sheet and blanket (which are very friendly to me tactile was, were now wet from the pop and needed to be removed. I felt my ears burning, and when I was able to make it back downstairs again, I noticed my left ear was so overloaded it was turning a dark red. I dampened a washcloth and used that on my ears while I laid back down, and the meltdown slowly subsided.

Ah, just felt the need to post this, if only to show some of my friends that I have my moments, for sure, lol. :P