Paranoia

The unknown eats at me
I feel myself secure
Relatively secure
Others are secure too but
I am never sure.

The others are my friends
The others have other friends
They are loved
They are alone
And I fear for them.

The anxiety overwhelms
Panic ensues
They must be dead
Or hurt and cannot
Tell me otherwise.

Frantic irrational concern
Panic totality
I must find out
I must save
Without me they are doomed.

Always I panic
I love them all
I need them
They define me,
For them I am nothing at all.

Asperger's Syndrome, black and white.

I just could not stop crying.  I had picked up a book that I got a few years ago on Aspergers Syndrome but had never actually read and I started at the start and muddled through the heavy language feeling some compassion as if I was reading my life.  Moved to the FAQ at the back and there I was presented in chart form:

QUALITIES 
Honest
Determined
An expert
Aware of sounds that others can not hear
Kind
Forthright
A perfectionist
A loner
A reliable friend
Good at drawing
Observant of details that others do not see
Exceptional at remembering things that others have forgotten
Humorous in a unique way
Advanced knowledge in mathematics
Liked by adults

DIFFICULTIES 
Accepting mistakes
Making friends
Taking advice
Managing anger
Handwriting
Knowing what someone is thinking
avoiding being teased
Showing as much affection as other family members expect
Coping with sudden noise
Explaining thoughts using speech

 And then I just broke down in the Park where I was reading.  You can't understand what it is like seeing yourself described in print by a stranger who has never met you, accurately.

Now I have a headache

The tough part of reading this book is that it makes me feel suicidal.  Because I have gone nearly forty years without it and now I see that if I had known earlier, much grief would have been avoided.  More, I might have been in a better position.  My personal paranoia that when someone says something nice to me the constant waiting for the social jab.  I hate compliments because I do not believe them.  The waiting for someone to deliver a coup de grace as I wait.

I really hate people, even though I need them.

Wall Street

There was a heated discussion on Facebook about the protest. It continued as a letter to me, here it is.

Acquaintance wrote: this was too long to put on my post....

the gap between the rich and the poor is getting bigger I think because of lack of education. I think if ours and the American school system taught proper financial principles there'd be more intelligent choices. Problem with a few people getting poorer is not due to lack of attainable wealth, let's face it....we live in a capitalistic society, there's wealth to be made and enough for everybody. I just think the thing is this....the banks and other corporations have been in control for years and years....but when was the last time your bank sat you down and taught you, not just told you to go to the machine and do the same transaction there, but actually taught you how to get out of your debts, save, create an emergency fund, etc??? They probably haven't. That's not what they are there for....but because of lack of education all they push is rate, rate, rate. Rate is only one factor in considering an entire solution. The bank is like an abusive spouse....takes advantage of you but you keep going back. It all goes to the education system the government provides. A friend was telling me that if the US were to put all the money into education instead of the war, there'd be 220,000 jobs for teachers. And while that's great, it doesn't fix the issue with the educational system.....just more teachers teaching the same crap. Anyways....I think that's where the real problem lies....not at Wall Street.

Greenpsychopomp wrote: If you took one hundred people and you educated them in finance, these are hard working people, you dropped them into the world and gave them into the real world what would happen?  One extra stipulation, education is not free, so with their four year undergraduate degree and their two year MBA, saddle each of them with an appropriate level of debt, let's be generous and only make it fifty thousand dollar debt.  Let us say one more thing one of them, chosen at random we pay off their debt, because the parents paid off his debt and gave him a job right out of school and a million dollars.  After a years time, who do you think will be a head of the others?  How far will they be ahead of the others?  Assuming the privileged one is not the hardest working person, would they still be ahead of the curve?  Assuming that the other 99 are working two jobs to pay off their debts it would still take them about two years to pay off their debts and you know that that is a generous number, how far ahead is that one from them?  In those two years, the one, has been working at +100k per year, gets 20% at bonus time and he marries his father's business partner's daughter, wedding paid for, house given to him outright and after the two years a nice promotion to boot.

The others marry, the weddings are less extravagant and are on a budget lets say city hall JP small reception, potluck.  They are renting, remember they are paying off a debt and you need 10% to make a down payment these days and houses are expensive, even out here in Ontario more where you are.  They are renting, money goes to a subsidiary of the family of the one as they have wisely invested their money in land and apartment buildings, to the tune of 12k per year (aren't I nice, that is cheap rent for a married couple even in TO, must be a one bedroom, I bet they use condoms because obviously they can't afford children yet).  Luckily that also means a third income, two jobs plus one is three.  That pays for the rent and the lease for the car.  Car company owned by the other family too.

Got a bet on who's in the lead now? Let's skip ten years into the future.  The 99 have bought houses, they are out of town so they are cheaper which means that the second job is gone; the commute squashed that.  The house was purchased from, you guessed it, the family of the One.  If this was America, I would now reveal that that company that the one got a cushy job at was a private bank and it invests in property management and house building projects.  99 houses @ 300k per house, amortization over twenty years for a total of 400k (I am so being nice) cost to build 150k, labour the biggest share of that.  They are now earning top dollar, that is about $100k per year they have 2.5 children and a dog.  The children are just getting ready to go to school.  Daycare is a bitch, $1500 a month, maternity leave meant that two years the wife stayed home, so no daycare, but only 60% of her paycheck.  Snip snip, no more children, no more condoms.  Good news 10% bonus once a year, because kids are expensive.  Kids are 3 and 4.

Back to the privileged class.  Ten years he is now a junior partner, 500k per year, that much again at bonus time.  He has three children 9, 7 and 5.  They are taken care of by the live in foreign domestic, $1500 per month.  The tutors and the private school all cost $100k per year, but it is the very best money can buy.  His wife only lost 18 months over the three children and works in the company for a similar wage, she worked from home after giving birth.  They are thinking about having another child.

Twenty years later . . .

With one child at Harvard doing premed the three older children now out with a Ivy School education in business and all with MBAs.  The eldest now being groomed for Dad's job at the head of the bank, the next, at the head of the Land Management department of investments and the next youngest portfolio manager and investment banker for the company.  

In Canada, the 99's children got a free ride in university.  In the States, after much scrapings and saving, their two children each have a $50,000 debt load, but have an average education and an MBA.  Repeat for them, the Canadians get McJobs, because that is the way of things but they work hard and get good jobs eventually.  The 99 are earning 250k per year, enough to leave the grand kids a million apiece when the time comes

Okay the twenty year is speculation and fiction, but I am not that old yet.  I do know people with post grads though, one with a doctorate, two MBAs.  Only one of them got a free ride, he also got a house, a free house.  No two jobs mind you, but their children have two grandparents and one mother coaching them and tutoring them.  Most of the rest are childless, the one that does is struggling and succeeding mind you, but still.  

When it comes down to it, the one percent of the population that controls most of the wealth and most of the influence in society keeps on acquiring more wealth and more influence and the acquire it from everyone else.

American children grow up all wanting to be President.  To become President of the United States one really only needs one thing.  You can be black, you can be white, a man or a woman, as long as you are a natural born citizen you can be President, as long as you are fabulously wealthy with wealthy friends.  Few people can hope to be President without lots of money, gobs of it.

I could not attend the Wall Street protest, I had to work.  Not wanted, but had to.  Wall Street is a symbol of the wealth of America, that is why it was targeted. A better choice would have been the parking lot of the local Wal-Mart, the wealthiest company in the history of the world and greatest concentrated of wealth ever seen, but they would have no qualms about calling the police to evict them.  

Understand?  

I am sure there will be more to come, I will admen this article later.

Reaching Out To Touch Someone

Many years ago, in the Big Smoke, I decided to take a course that was offered by the local school board during the off hours in the evening.  My roommates were taking courses too, so I signed up for one that I thought would help me meet people; read get a girl friend, (get laid).  I signed up for Shiatsu massage.  

I have always been a caring sort, I always want to help people and I always wanted people to feel better.  As a kid driving to Ottawa, I used to give my mother neck massages while she drove, because she said she liked it.  So I have wanted to give massages for a longtime.  At university I gave massages to some people in residence, I wanted them to feel good and yes, I wanted to get laid.  It never worked of course.  I learned women were happy to use me and wanted me as a friend as long as that was all it was.  

So I started my first step in what I hoped would be a possible vocation or something, mostly getting laid.  It sounds incredibly single minded, and it is in a way, but I also wanted the women to be happy.  I saw it as one more tool to keeping a girl friend . . ..  Whip out a shiatsu massage when they are feeling down and give her one more reason to be with me.  It was many years before shiatsu massage helped get me laid.

When I started it and learned about it and then when I practiced on my friends, I adopted a professional attitude.  There is a lot of intimate touching in massage and I decided that I would be professional every time I did it, so much for getting laid.  

The key to shiatsu massage is to be sensitive to the patient.  Really that is the only thing that is important.  You use you fingers and press into the muscle at a ninety degree angle to the muscle, no rubbing.  Rubbing will cause bruises as you must use a lot of pressure when you put pressure on the patient.   And the key is the muscles not the bones and the pressure is consistent to the needs of the person if it hurts them you ease up on the pressure and you increase the pressure in other areas.  You start from the top and move down in lines parallel to the spine for the back and the first two lines are beside the spine, the next line next to it.  

Shiatsu is done fully clothed, unless you are being intimate of course.  After the back, you move to the butt, and then down to the back of the legs.  The reason why it is purely professional with patients is the back goes down to the tip of the coccyx bone and I consider that an intimate location.  Doing the leg, the thigh, the inseam is done, right up to the joining spot, I consider that an intimate location.  Down the legs to the ankle, the feet top and bottom.  Neck and shoulders, that includes that face and ears.  Shoulders leads to arms and hands.  Emphasis on the lower back and the back of the knees.  Lower back is where a lot of people have stress and the back of the knees is also a stress point.  

When you do the arms you move the shoulders about in a circle.   And when you finish the back you brush the back with your hands in a sweep.  When the arms are finished another sweep down the arms.  When doing the head always be gentle after all it is the head.

Flip the patient over, i.e. tell them to turn over.  The front of the legs is done and the stomach and abdomen.  I don't do this with men because some men are "positioned" differently and massaging one friend's penis is enough for me!

The upper chest is not massaged.  Feet and hands are often missed and depending on the person, I will spend a lot of time on depending on the person.  People like area massaged a lot, particularly people on their feet a lot.

In Big Smokey

It is funny.  Funny that I should have more fun in this city now that I have not lived here for nearly a year.  When I was here before I was mostly alone and very lonely, but now it has not been that way.  I know why; it is the people.  I am with people here.  I played games with a new person and my friend.

People are not meant to be alone, we go crazy alone.  We get depressed more often and we die sooner.  It is not about health it is about dying of loneliness.  I feel that I don't need sex, in any form, when I am satisfied.  

My friends from university are progressing from where they stopped.  One has published a book of poetry, I think this is her second book, one is moving up within his work place, a head office of the biggest bank in the country; he is getting recognized.  The friend I am staying with, is defending his doctorate next month and is publishing his dissertation in a academic book form.  Two of them are teachers, university teachers.  Another friend has a family of geniuses and has gone back to school to become a chiropractor.  All four of them have post graduate degrees.  I do not feel envy for them, I am proud of them, but I am envious of their apparent success in their lives.  Although I believe two of them are not happy, just happier than me.

Death is my companion.  This winter will be tough, suicide will the instrument of my demise.  I was unhappy in Toronto last time, I was less alone in Toronto, I was still lonely but, less so.  Bored do to lack of work but, now I have employment and depression worse than before.  Soon I will not have that, seasonal lay offs.  Will I start to read again or will I be too depressed to do that.  Will I try to organize a game of not.  Will I get to play Settlers of Catan with new friends and old? Or will I die of loneliness this winter.

Canadian Political Justice

Omar Khadr.  This is this guy that who proved that Canada, more exactly that democracies are a shame.  

There was this really cool decision that Canadian politicians decided to put forth many years ago to combat a horrible war crime that was occurring in Africa.  That crime was the practice of putting weapons in the hands of children and making them kill people. To me this was a just thing to do.  And then Canadian politicians went out into the world and advocated that other nations should sign this resolution that child soldiers are wrong and that the children had no choice and the people that put weapons in the hands of these children are guilty of war crimes.  The child has been robed of their childhood and they are as much a victim as any other victim in war.  Canada signed, as did most civilized nations in the world.

In 2001 after the horrific attacks on the World Trade Center, the United States declared war on Afghanistan.  Omar Khadr was 14 and he was pressed into service because his father told him to.  In 2002 the compound that he was in was attacked by the US, and he allegedly threw a grenade that killed an American service member, an army medic.  Omar Khadr is captured and sent to jail for his crime.

There are a few things that I find a problem with what happened.  The first is why the Americans think that they can arrest someone for fighting in a war against them?  The argument that he was a Taliban fighter and he helped attack America, is very week.  By that argument, all the veterans of the second world war should be sent to jail for murder, because the Germans killed Jews, and the Americans dropped nuclear bombs on civilian targets, and therefore all soldiers on both sides are partially responsible for the acts that occurred in the war.  Yes, that is silly.  America invaded Afghanistan and while the government leaders were responsible for the attacks of 9/11, the rest of the populace was not.  

Secondly Omar Khadr, was a kid, a child soldier.  You do not treat children the same as you treat adults because they are not the same.  Sure some of them are just as big as adults, but they are lacking in judgement of an adult.  Something about their prefrontal cortexes where, judgement resides, being altered because of puberty.  Look around at all the teenagers count the stupid things that they have done and would not have if their judgment was intact.  

Thirdly, and this is important, American witnesses have stated that Omar had been shot in the back at the time the miser had been committed.  It suggests that, since Omar Khadr had been lucky enough to survive a gun battle with American troops, albeit nearly dying from it, where an american soldier died and all Omar Khadr's fellow fighters being lucky enough to have died, he was held responsible for their actions.  Okay that is a little fiction, meaning no one really knows or cares what happened to his fellow fighters, except of course their families.  A digression:  I can't play first shooter gun games.  I get overwhelmed, there is too much happening all at once and that is just a game.  If I was in a house and I had a gun and a grenade and a bunch of soldiers burst down the front door and started shooting, would I care that one of them with an arm band was a non-combat soldier?  No, I would not care, nor would I care that my pants were a stinking gooey mess, I would be too busy trying to get them to stop shooting, and I would probably do that by trying to kill them right back.  Okay, I would crawl under a table an hope they would go away, but a fifteen year old would start shooting, because their judgement is impaired.  

The fix him up and bring him to Cuba, he does not get to sit on the beach and drink copious quantities of alcohol, partially because he is under the legal drinking age, hell he is not even allowed to have sex yet, but he is allowed to face a firing squad!  And the Canadian government let's him sit there, and they ignore him.  France, and Australia they gather up their expatriates, all over the age of 18, and take them to jails in their country, but not Canada!  We signed that treaty that is against child soldiers, but this does not apply, because he was trying to kill us.  

2009 the government decides that the term 'Child Soldier' is banned.  I can only think that it is because the government changed and they don't agree with what happened before and want to ignore it.  Next thing you know the Canadian government will ban the term 'Concentration Camps', they re-named Reservations . . ..

Omar Khadr is now 24.  He pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and made a confession so as he would not get shot in the head for being a stupid teenager who was panicking after his father forced him to join the army at the age of 14.  

Professional Help

The trouble is, is that to be me, with my particular form of AS (Asperger's Syndrome), is pure hell at times. I have mentioned before that my particular obsession is sex. For all intensive purposes, I am a sex addict, but there is no treatment for me. I am obsessive compulsive about sex. That is when I get horny I feel that I NEED to have sex, in one of its many forms. Unfortunately for me, before last year, most of the forms of sex that I experienced offered no respite. Sex with a condom, no pleasure, oral sex with a condom, no pleasure, oral sex without a condom, pain, receiving a hand job, no pleasure, masturbation something, but really not much. I swear, no word of a lie, I masturbate an average of five or six times a day. The Internet has been a godsend and a curse, one it gives me so many more choices and bad, I get horny every time I turn on the Internet. I should point out, that when I get horny I find it difficult to think of anything else, to the point that in the morning I will leave it until I have to leave for work and I will miss breakfast, and I will be late too. I often injure myself too; of course I can't stop for an injury.

Do you see now? This is serious OCD and addiction stuff. Because I have a very low EQ I find it difficult to get past being a friend. Women find that I make a great friend, and only a friend. So one day a few years ago when I was coming on far too strong for a friend, she suggested professional help. At that point I had gone almost four years without sex, before that brief relationship I had not had sex in eight years, are you getting this? It is not like I am remotely successful with women, or know for that matter if a woman is interested; I just cannot tell and they think, even after I tell them that I can't tell, that I rebuff their signs and hints. I need people to tell me if they are interested.

Smoke, big

I am going to the Big Smoke this weekend, might pick up all of Neil Gaiman's books :)

I don't give names or place names, but Big Smoke, (BS), is where my heart lives, it is where I was born too. BS, strangely is fiLled with lots of shallow sociopathic women. That is, the women there are extra picky and known through the free world for their attitude.

The problem is that I can't get along in BS. I hate boonieville, but BS is not much better either for me. That realization almost cost me my life. Which is to say I am not at all happy, here or there, but there I feel connected to the world. BS is actually in a different country; it IS a different country. Okay that is a lie, it is not too far away from here, but it is completely different. By example, 95% of all people die in the same place that they were born was a statistic that was thrown around a lot about most places. To bring this to light my meaning, only 5% of people are the movers looking for a new thing, a new vitality. I really think that it is closer to 90:10, but you get the idea. In BS, over 50% of the population is made of this vibrant population. Over 50% are visible minorities, more than 10% of the population is Gay, (I am not Gay, but large homosexual populations are more vibrant regions). BS is a different country, more than any other place I know. I can eat food from any other location on the planet and date their women (that is if they were not so stuck up as they all seem to be as soon as they arrive there).