This got me thinking about Asperger’s.

Every now and then, I tell people I’m Aspie just to see what they’ll do. It’s always weird. If I don’t get the horrified No you don’t!, I get the stupefied blinking, followed by an abrupt change of subject. No doubt, Asperger’s is not yet received well by the general public.

So all this begs the question: If a brain like this can score not just record deals, but also a guest-speaking gig at Harvard University:

Our beloved Paris Hilton. Image provided by Tomas de Aquino.

And a brain like this can land the 16^th slot in Time magazine’s readers’ top 100 most influential people list:

Celebrity blogger and all-around ass hole, Perez Hilton. Image provided by Tom Reynolds.

And a brain like this can get a shout-out from the president of the United States of America:

Snooki. Image provided by Erin Kelly.

Then why are we still stigmatizing a brain like this?*

Image provided by César Blanco

*To be clear – I am not saying I’m an Einstein. But many experts believe he was Aspie.

To best illustrate this for you, I provide you with a list of my weirdest traits, which as it turns out, are less idiosyncratic than symptomatic:

Piling:  I sleep under a mountain of pillows. Plus I put one between my knees. I hug another. And I smash two against my face. I used to call this snuggling. Now it’s called piling.

My bed

Songs on The List: The List is comprised of songs that burrow their way into my brain and live there for days. They’ve been known to nauseate me. To make me a little…unhinged. I can’t give you examples because the typing of their names is enough to lock me in catchy tune hell, but they’re basically anything you would hear at the bank. Rod Stewert. Huey Lewis and the News. 20th century Madonna. You get the idea. I’ve had leave grocery stores because of songs on The List. I’ve almost had to leave my husband for singing them. My family used to call this part of me cute. Now we call it perseverative thinking.

Songs on the other list:  This list is the opposite of The List. These songs are welcome–nay, encouraged–to burrow their way into my brain. To ensure they do just that, I play them on repeat. A lot. If you want to see my old college roommates beg for death, play them Toad the Wet Sprocket’s “Walk on the Ocean.” Who knew they were onto something when they said, “Turn it off already! This is not normal.” If you need further proof, you may refer to my current iTunes library, where you will see that I’ve played most songs about 25 times. But “Distant Sures” by the Cave Singers? 1,142. Nobody within earshot ever called this trait cute. More like insufferable. We now call this perseverating, too.

Water games: Perhaps the aversion to water games isn’t unheard of, but I think the intensity of mine may fall a bit outside the curve. If you splash me, I will cry. If you throw me in a body of water, I will slash your fucking tires.

I’m not kidding.

What we used to refer to as my can of whoop-ass is now called a sensory issue.

Playing with my ankles while standing: I’ll never forget the first time I realized I do this. I was Work Kirsten, which is to say I was the personable, brown-nosing version of myself who wears Ann Taylor skirts and heels. I was with a tough crowd–all superiors. You may be surprised to learn I felt nervous. What started as a pretend itch quickly evolved into minutes-long, full-on groping of the tarsus in a wobbly flamingo pose, most likely with a brazen display of crotch. What am I doing? I wondered. And when, for the love of God, am I going stop? Well Kirsten, you were stimming. And you will never stop.

What are your quirky traits? Aspie or not, share the in the comments section below! (I promise I won’t give them clinical labels that diminish your luster).

Let’s take a minute to discuss what I find to be some key issues:

1. I see that “3 numbers” is circled. Presumably this was done to highlight a concept that Little Yoda missed. To that, I say: Three tens are three numbers.
2. I also see that skip counting is modeled in red ink. That’s nice. However, the directions do not indicate that one must show skip counting to answer this question appropriately. In fact, my understanding is that one must answer the question “Did Ann skip count by 2s, 5s, or 10s?”
3. Can we not assume that if Yoda illustrates that 10+10+10=30, then he understands the concept that Ann is counting by tens to get to thirty?
4. Since Little Yoda finds this math problem to be so mind-numbing that he has to toss in some third-grade division to entertain himself (while simultaneously adding strength to his argument that Ann is counting by tens), is it too much to ask that we assume he’s got the math down and we not mark up his paper?

Here’s the thing. I understand that having Asperger’s increases my risk of developing narcissistic defenses. I accept that such defenses could be driving my condescending attitude toward this asinine math problem. And maybe I’m being a bit snobby when I say that my kid consistently blows first grade math out of the water. But it drives me bonkers when he comes home with his pages all marked up, thus decreasing his confidence in what God very well may have intended to be his gift. Am I alone in this?

P.S. It’s worth noting that Yoda’s teacher is awesome and would mark this answer correct if I had the balls to say all this to her face. This post is not about her, but is instead about displacing a lifetime’s worth of frustration on this one measly problem.

To establish authority, I rely on my other strengths, which are pretty much limited to obsessively collecting data and categorizing it. Because we’re going to discuss Yoda’s attendance, I gather up every last one of his medical records, email them to Mr. Doctor, then put the hard copies in a binder (because no one fucks with a woman with a binder). “I will not be treated like a crazy person,” I say as I three-hole punch with fervor. “I will be treated with respect.”

For the first time in weeks, I get up early enough to style my hair. I put on make up. And for about 15 minutes I’m even wearing heels, but ultimately decide I look levelheaded enough without them.

I am confident when I arrive at Mr. Doctor’s office. I shake his hand with minimal Aspergery false starts. As he makes himself comfortable in his ergonomic Sharper Image throne, I sit down in a first-grade desk chair, open my binder and establish dominance thus. Bring it, I think.

And he does. He stares into my eyes (yikes!). Already my leg starts to jiggle. “So we have a lot of anxiety in the family,” he says.

We do. And it’s primarily mine. But how does he know this and why is it relevant? As my mind reels, I forget to maintain eye contact. I have a thumb-war with myself. I sweat profusely. After a long, awkward pause, filled only with the sounds of my stimming I finally ask, “Huh?”

He grabs a stack of paper from his desk. “Anxiety, OCD, Asperger’s…”

Right. Now I’m messing up the hair I worked so hard to wash and blow dry because I can’t keep my fingers from running nervously through it. Seriously. How does this jerk-off know this? “Uh…huh?”

We go on in this incredibly awkward way for much longer than my social and coping skills can handle. I’m a nervous wreck by the time he finally reveals how he came upon these truths: in my hypervigilance to look sane and organized, I accidentally sent him my medical records along with Yoda’s.

So much for hiding my crazy!

*OK, fine. Technically he is a doctor. But I embarrassed myself and now he’s the recipient of my temper tantrum.

We are French and we're better than you.

It appears ethnocentrism is now to parenting books what vampires are to young adult fiction. After Tiger mom, my inner Aspie was so enraged that I almost lost faith in humanity for making the author rich. So, when Why French Parents Are Superior was published in the Wall Street Journal, I was ready for war. I would leave a weasely little anonymous comment so enlightening that I would single-handedly reverse the tidal wave of PR buzz and would damage the book sales thus.

Unfortunately, French mom lady’s essay was relatively logical and I kind of liked her. First of all, she’s American so already I’m less defensive. She’s self-deprecating, there’s no blurred line between her advice and child abuse, and unlike most general parenting tips, hers were actually Aspie friendly. A few aligned with my worldview and the ones that didn’t were good discussion points at least:

Nugget #1. The French have managed to be involved with their families without becoming obsessive.

I’m not sure I can accomplish anything without becoming obsessive and can see the benefits of getting that in check. I’ll think about that one. Obsessively.

Nugget # 2.  French toddlers were sitting contentedly in their high chairs… eating fish and even vegetables.

I like this line, except it’s sure to incite a comment shit-storm that goes something like, “In my day, we ate what we got or went hungry.” Picky eating is a red flag for sensory issues, mineral deficiencies, OCD, food allergies and umpteen other things that can’t be fixed by going to bed hungry.

Sure, there’s the chance that a picky kid is just a little jerk, but we can we all agree to not default to that?

Nugget #3. “Discipline [in France]”… is a narrow, seldom-used notion that deals with punishment. Whereas “educating”… is something they imagined themselves to be doing all the time.

Any Aspie will tell you punishment blows. I’m not talking about professionally advised negative reinforcement. I’m talking about “You shut your mouth or your grounded!” Education? Bring it.

Nugget #4. French babies I meet mostly sleep through the night from two or three months old.

OK, this sentence can fuck off. I demand to know whether French pediatricians instill the fear of God in parents with regards to stomach-sleeping.

Nugget #5. American kids don’t have firm boundaries… anything goes.

As an Aspie rule-follower, I’m inept without boundaries and fully support implementing them. But, not every American parent is screwing this up. Methinks the author is projecting (as evidenced by the fact that she allows her toddler to run dangerously toward a deep body of water).

It seems this author may have fallen prey to marketing when slapping a title on the essay and tossing in some hyperbole. Who can blame her. A lot of people clicked. But regardless of how the media wants to spin it, this thing is not going to turn into another Tiger Mom debate. It’s just not mean enough. In fact, the only heartless thing this author does is make her kids wear cheesy berets for the photo shoot.

In the end, I felt too balanced to leave a nasty, anonymous comment, and I might even read the book. I’ll save my rage for something else. Like Dance Moms.

90377 Sedna. Home sweet home.

As if it’s not hard enough for a man to understand his wife, my husband got a double-whammy and ended up with me. We Aspie wives are enormously undiagnosed and are therefore a rare and misunderstood breed. There are no manuals on us. If neurotypical (NT) men are from Mars and NT women are from Venus, then Aspie wives are from Sedna.

I put this list together for all you NT guys out there with wives like me so I can feel better about myself so that when you find yourself wondering what the heck you got yourself into, you can remember why being married to your Aspie wife rocks:

10. You don’t have to cuddle.

9. You don’t have to wrack your brain thinking of “thoughtful” gifts. She* hates anything she didn’t pick out herself. Go ahead and stick to the list.

8. You can save money on dental cleanings because there’s a good chance she has a phobia.

7.  You don’t have to tell her she looks pretty when she doesn’t or that her butt doesn’t look big when it does; she hates bullshit.

6. You don’t have to worry about her going out to dance clubs to flirt with guys.

5. You will never have to endure gaggles of giggling, shrieking women in your living room.

4. You don’t have to sit through movie adaptations of Nicholas Sparks books.

3. You have a much higher chance than the average guy of being able to play video games all night and calling that a date.

2. You don’t have to deal with her hogging the bathroom for hours a day while she does her hair and make up.

And last, but certainly not least:

1. There’s a good chance you don’t have to listen to mainstream pop.

*By she, I mean I. This list is shamelessly autobiographical. Since Aspie ladies are as diverse as their neurotypical counterparts, I invite my Aspie readers to entertain us with their addenda or modifications in the comments section below.

Every now and then, my six-year-old Little Yoda merges his two passions (Mario Kart Wii and Absurdism) and says things like: God’s playing us like a game!

And every now and then, I believe him.

Take this week, for instance. The husband went out of town, an action that always trips up the whole family, especially the dog, who I am convinced has Asperger’s. A whirlwind of suitcases and I love you’s and hightailing it out the door because my husband is always late leaves the rest of us vibrating in the wake of it all.

Said vibrations always peak at bedtime, when the Aspie dog pants and paces in circles. Yoda invariably says his arms are too heavy to brush his teeth. I check the locks eleventy-zillion times, which I never do when my husband’s home. I then turn on every light to ward off the burglars I am convinced are in the bushes, and I prop several phones on my pillow so I can call for help when these burglars break in.

But not this time.

This time I know that faulty wiring – not logic – propels this bedtime routine and I quite look forward to conquering it. I am not going to ritualize tonight. I am going to remain calm in the face of this dreaded transition and harness my family’s neurological resonance thus.

We are off to a good start. We’re fed and exercised and our functioning is in no way impaired. “Time for bed!” I say, and I’m proud that I’m saying this at a proper hour instead of waiting until exhaustion sets in so I can fall asleep faster. Yoda runs upstairs with feather-light arms that are perfectly capable of lifting a toothbrush. Aspie dog looks as me as if to say: Thank you for harnessing our neurological resonance.

But this is not what she’s saying.

What she’s really saying is: I’m going to shit on the carpet. And then I’m going to barf. And then I’ll shit on the carpet again. And then I’ll get so sick that you will have spare your fellow bloggers the details that ultimately lead you to take me to the emergency vet, where I will receive x-rays and IV fluids for hours. (But in the end, I will be fine so your fellow bloggers don’t have to worry. But you have to worry, Kirsten. Because you won’t know how this ends until much, much later).

When I gather that this is what she’s telling me – when my house is virtually condemnable – I hand off Little Yoda to a neighbor, where he will keep their entire family up until after midnight, when I return and realize he now has a fever and a cough that will keep us both up during every last one of the remaining peak burgling hours.

And this, my friends, is what happens when I try to find peace by outsmarting the neurological barriers God has given me. He has back-up plans. He is playing us like a game.

P.S. To the burglars lurking on this site: my husband is back and he’s big and scary.

It may surprise you to know that I’m a bit a of a control freak. Because of this fact, and because I don’t want anyone messing with Little Yoda’s fragile psyche, I volunteer frequently at his school. And by frequently, I mean all the time. Now, you may be thinking that I’m projecting–that this is more about my own fragile psyche than Little Yoda’s. To that I say: that’s a blog post for another day. Today is about something bigger than that.

Today is about first grade math.

It has become my weekly task to correct everyone’s math homework. And because there is no answer key, every week it’s the same. I mark the same answer wrong on six or seven papers before it finally dawns on me that maybe the wrong answer is the one in my head. I flip to Carol’s homework because she’s the daughter of an oceanographer and an aeronautical engineer and she is likely right. Here it becomes clear. I’ve messed up another story problem.*

When the teacher later inspects my work and sees all my comments in red marker (Please disregard! OK! Oops!), my response is always the same, “Haven’t had my coffee yet!” Ha ha. I don’t even drink coffee; it makes me mentally ill. What I’m really thinking is: These story problems are a crock.

Let’s take Billy, for instance. He buys a package of 10 balloons. He blows up 7. How many balloons does he have now? Easy. 10. 7 of which are inflated. So why did everyone write 3? Apparently, in the neurotypical world an inflated balloon is no longer a balloon. What is it now, I want to know? What do you people call an inflated balloon?

Similarly, Bobby has 12 ice cubes. He puts 2 in a glass of lemonade. How many does he have now? 12. He has 12. Not 10. He does NOT HAVE 10. Bobby has 12 fucking ice cubes, 2 of which are in his glass of lemonade and 10 of which are…hey! Now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t even know where the other 10 went. Maybe they’re gone. How should I know? There’s not enough information here.

And so it goes. Every week I mark story problem answers wrong, every week they end up right. Every week I say I need the cup of coffee that will never be. Every week Little Yoda is stuck at a B average in math because I helped him with his homework–stuck like I was all the way through school, feeling like everybody else was reading from a script I never got, feeling like….oh wait…this post isn’t about my fragile psyche.

*The story problem issue has haunted me all my life, but I didn’t realize it was an Aspie trait until I stumbled upon AspergerSadie’s blog http://ihaveaspergers.webs.com/. Thanks for the insight, AspergerSadie!

While chatting and eating gluten free/dairy free/egg free/nut free/soy free/corn free pancakes* with Little Yoda this morning, I accidentally swallowed a syllable.

Me: That sounds fun[gulp].
Little Yoda: You mean funny. You mean that sounds funny.

I may not empathize as much as the average person, but believe me, I can empathize with one’s need to correct another’s grammar. I mean I REALLY empathize with this need. I am just very good at silencing it.

I realized the time has come to help Little Yoda harness his Super Grammar Skills. The trick with him is to not pussyfoot around stuff. Crap like, “It’s not polite to correct grammar” doesn’t fly with him. Just give it to him straight. So I told him this story:

It was back in my table waiting days (if you were to assume my constellation of Asperger traits would make me spectacularly inept for this profession, you would be right). I was a friendless new hire. It was the “side work” part of the night when the staff was expected to endure such unpleasantries as getting our hands wet while cleaning things and smelling the wet food that had been festering under the slip mats all day.

I had been assigned to clean small trays. A scary, loud girl had been assigned to large trays at a sink nearby. I was carefully scrubbing in a way that got only my fingertips wet (as wet hands are a very particular kind of hell), when I heard something that made every one of my body hairs stand on end. Scary loud girl had said, “There’s more large trays over there.”

I hadn’t intended to reply, but something automated and arguably masochistic within me made me speak. “There are,” I said.

“WHAT?!! What did you say, new girl?!”

I knew I had made a grave mistake, but did not know how to undo it. I only knew to keep staring at my small trays and wet fingertips and raise my voice a little. “I said there are. There are more large trays.”

At this point, scary large girl raised her arms and all the large trays she was holding, threw them to the floor, incited an earthquake, and yelled, “Pardon me, Miss Grammar!!!”

Little Yoda: Well, that ended badly.
Me: Indeed, Yoda, it did. And THAT is why we don’t correct anyone else’s grammar.

*Like wet hands, trying to find an eggless, gluten free pancake recipe that did not yield slimy, goopy pancakes was also a special kind of hell. We use this deliciously fluffy pancake recipe from Gluten Free Diva, with homemade sunflower seed meal in place of almond meal. We are forever grateful to her.

After reading the Journal of Best Practices and receiving my Aspie diagnosis almost simultaneously, I was determined to transcend my wiring in the context of my marriage. I could not wait to show my neurotypical husband my new skills. He’s a cuddly guy. I love to cuddle, too, so long as he’s not exuding heat, smelling like garlic or onion, breathing loudly or with a faint whistle, or lightly touching any part of me. What a surprise it would be if I spontaneously snuggled him with no solicitation!

Because I don’t do spontaneous, I planned this gesture in painstaking detail. I would do it during Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (a fascinating peephole into the befuddling world of human behavior). I would make my affection appear natural, perhaps following a bathroom break. He would receive me with stunned gratitude and would praise my “normie” traits, which, as it turned out, were only one conscious decision away!

When the moment was right, I put my spontaneous plan into motion. With nonchalance, I plopped myself clumsily onto what I expected to be his lap but ended up being his left leg and the couch cushion. I would have determined this to be a minor slip-up, were he not wailing in agony. As he writhed and yowled beneath me, I felt confused. When he reminded me he’d suffered extensive injuries in a skateboarding accident that very day, I did not. After all, the funky coloring of his huge bruises had very recently grossed me out and sent tingles up the backs of my thighs. These tingles assaulted me again now and left me virtually unable to soothe him.

Darn you, abysmally low empathy quotient!