cyphercrypt

My new blood sugar sensor wasn't available with the other prescriptions I recently picked up. The endocrinologist had already prescribed it, but my medical insurance really does not want to pay for it, so the endo office has to send some other kind of authorization.

From how the endo described the device and previous (failed) attempts to get a similar device, I suspected that I'd need a mobile phone to use it, so I made sure to ask about it. I asked the pharmacy staffperson whether I could use the thing without a cell phone, she went to check, then came back and said that I'd need something called a reader "if I didn't want to use my cell phone." At no point did I say that I have a cell phone (I don't!) or that I didn't "want" to use one. It was like another instance of someone being incredulous that I have no mobile phone. So the endo office has to prescribe a reader so that I can actually get data from the sensor. Kind of ridiculous to have the operation of a medical device be so dependent on a mobile phone.

School is back in session, so I have to go to the high school track at off times again. I arrived at around eight thirty or eight-forty tonight and people were still leaving the soccer practice. About an hour later, the groundsperson showed up; I didn't feel safe there alone with him, so I left early. If I want to be alone there, I need to go between the hours of like ten pm and four am it seems. I do better with late hours than I do with early one, so I'm shifting my schedule later, going to bed at maybe 2 or 3 am. Now my blog posting schedule is really going to be messed up.

I once again ended up on Reddit and followed some user's profile to a string of physical-appearance related sub-reddits: r/ugly and r/shortguys and r/foreveralonewomen or maybe it was r/fawomen. Kinda messed up is the best way I can put it. Reddit seems to be crawling with people who are miserable with themselves.

r/shortguys links to some interesting stuff off-site. There's a whole forum for "short" guys, where the users post brutal shit like this:

https://thelowerview.com/topic/she-admits-that-she-d-rather-have-a-disloyal-tall-man-than-a-great-short-one-2994

https://thelowerview.com/topic/they-all-laugh-because-he-s-everything-they-want-but-5-6-3020

These womyn are disgusting.

I don't like the title of this website, and "short guys" as the name for a sub-reddit is even worse. The problem with most people calling themselves "short" is that they aren't actually short in terms of global, trans-historical norms of human height. These guys calling themselves short are implicitly taking the height of tall people as their standard, but the people who are 5'10+ are something out of the ordinary, their height isn't or shouldn't be any kind of human standard.

This is why I never say that I like "short" guys; I say that I don't like tall ones. (I like guys 5'6 and below.) They aren't short by any reasonable measure, so I don't call them short. I reject the height standard by which they are considered short. "Short" has become a pejorative term in the context of height. It implies a lack of measuring up to something that's expected or considered better. That's not my perspective at all so I don't use that word for anyone, regardless of height. "The Lower View" sounds self-desparaging as well, but it's not as bad as "short guys" or the copium of "short kings." They're just guys. Their towering counterparts are the ones whose existence should be marked with an adjective: there are guys and then there are tall guys.

I would be repulsed by a guy who saw me as short, especially if he himself were not tall. Like I'm short compared to whom? Don't want guys who view themselves or normal human height as "short."

Today started off fairly productive but then I tried to buy some underwear off of Ebay, the checkout page wouldn't stop loading something, and I ended up buying three packs of underwear instead of one, which has nearly depleted my checking account. When it came to alerting me to the fact that I didn't have enough funds in my account to make the purchase I'd thought hadn't gone through, the checkout page worked just fine. I received zero transaction confirmations.

I'm not able to do anything about this tonight because it happened so late in the day. I tried calling the fraud department associated with my debit card, but I was told that no transactions were visible. I tried creating an Ebay account so that I could cancel the excess transactions...but I need a mobile phone to verify my identity. I woudn't give Ebay my number even if I did have a phone. I don't trust Ebay to give me back my money, and I'm afraid that I'll be left with fourteen bucks for the rest of the month. This is kind of stressful. But! At least I have a credit card in case I have important purchases to make before I get next month's income.

My ideas about non-autistic thought and behavior come not only from personal experience and the experiences of other autistic people, but from research. I would love to link the video that first got me to consider that non-autistic "social skills" and other "normal" behavior is largely just aping, but I cannot find it. Something about the difference between the autistic kids and the non-autistic kids' control group imitating the researcher opening a box. The researcher told both groups of kids to do what she did to open a small box. She included some nonsense movements, like tapping on the lid of the box, then did what she needed to do to open it. The non-autistic kids were more likely to imitate the nonsense movements.

Well, instead, I found this article: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3521151/

In particular:

Autistic children often display similar performance to neurotypical children when imitating actions that have a visual goal or meaning but are less able to imitate goal-less or meaningless actions

(I didn't realize this particular type of research went back so far.) In other words, the autistic kids are skipping the senseless bullshit. Considering that autistic people don't have the same social instincts as non-autistic people, vis-a-vis, for example, mirroring others or people-pleasing, the range of behavior that appears to us to be "senseless bullshit" can be rather wide.

As for what the author terms "the pattern of imitation impairments in autism," I have to argue about the "impairment" characterization. Having grown up in a dysfunctional family of criminals, I'm very glad for my "imitation impairments." The instinct for mimicry is a deficit in toxic environments.

Today I've been brainstorming affordable ways to stay in Sacramento for a while. I decided to see whether the Sacramento VA has a compensated work therapy program. It does, but the main staff member has left and I was directed to call the program manager. Unsurprisingly, no one answered the phone.

I am frustrated. I get rather annoyed with desk job people who are seemingly never at their desks. The program manager is probably busier than the regular staff member and therefore not easy to reach. This garbage voip phone service doesn't disconnect properly and causes me to miss phone calls, so I really don't want to leave a message and wait for a call back. I don't want to wait at all, voip or not. I just need to know whether they'd allow me to participate given that my area has no cwt program.

I'm desperate to increase the humidity here. I haven't been doing enough. If I want Sacramento-like levels of humidity, I've come to see, I'm going to have to force water into the air until it feels like Sacramento in here. So I'm running the fan in back of the humidifier, to push the moisture around the apartment. I'm also boiling water. I'm going to have to boil water like all day. I'll have to do this every day.

I call from time to time throughout the day. Every time I hang up, I have to let the receiver sit off the hook for a while, otherwise the phone won't disconnect and will just keep ringing.

I got an email notification of someone having replied to a thread I'd created months before on the lesbian dating site, so I took the opportunity to log in and fill out my profile. I had deleted everything, my pictures and text, and had considered deleting my entire account. I hadn't felt comfortable being a member once I'd decided that I wasn't a lesbian (even though the site is not lesbian-only), plus there's almost zero activity on the site (or maybe all the activity is via private interactions) so I figured I'd lean towards privacy and have one less place online where people could find my pictures. But I decided against eliminating whatever chances I have of finding someone, however small they may be. Also, I was able to remove the "lesbian" from my profile options without having to replace it with anything. That was important to me.

A couple days ago, I was able to download from scribd a Korean textbook I've been wanting for some time. Once I'd downloaded a few of the accompanying audio files, I was faced once again with Annoyingly and Unnaturally High-Pitched Asian Female Voice. I've heard it in anime, I've heard it in my Mandarin textbook's audio files. I did some research into this phenomenon and came up with this article: https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15508599

The article is specific to Japan, but the situation is probably similar in other countries. Social pressure to sound young, cute, etc. Patriarchy. Disgusting. Womyn need to get their shit together. Actually, sometimes womyn seem to perpetrate shit on and amongst themselves, probably mistakenly believing that men care. Kinda like guys doing things that mainly other men care about to impress womyn. But more damaging.

I wanted to finally clear my living room of all the boxes and papers, but cleaning the kitchen and bathroom has worn me out, so it may not happen tonight. Tedium must be a large part of the feeling, a large part of the reason why I struggle to keep my living space clean in general, because I can walk for hours yet I feel tired after just forty-five minutes of sweeping, mopping, scrubbing surfaces, and throwing things into the trash. Also I have to think about cleaning but not about walking. Having to scrub the muck left over from meal remnants washed down the sink made me think I should go fully raw vegan. The basic version doesn't generate a lot of mess besides the juices, seeds, and peels of fruit. Plus there's no time spent on cooking. But some of that time is spent on extra trips to the grocery store because produce doesn't last very long.

Like a dumbass, I went out walking without eating enough again and had to come right back to avoid a headache. This is note to self to stop doing that stupid shit. I can get away with it first thing in the morning, but not later in the day. Why?

I want that goddamned doctor so badly. In my mind's eye I keep seeing his hand held out, waiting for me to squeeze it, as he began the physical exam. Knobby knuckles and long, finely shaped fingers. Red at the thumb and pale at the palm, probably from the pressure of all the washing. Bandages on the thumb and another finger. I wonder why his hand was bandaged.

This sucks.

I keep thinking about him. I've had maybe half a dozen imaginary conversations with him.

Oddly enough, I'm having chips now. Regularly, I mean, or at least until I run out of the bag I just bought. My sandwiches don't contain enough calories to form a full meal, so I'm able to fit in a serving. This fattening, unfulfilling junk food is now a part of the diet. One serving is eight chips. I counted out eight chips to make sure I didn't overeat, then I shoved the bag to the back of a cabinet that's annoying and a little difficult to access. Now that I think about it, buying double the bread and having two sandwiches instead of one would probably make more sense. A large bag of chips costs about the same as a pack of rye bread.

I am bingeing Mandarin videos from Odyssey now. I convert them to mp3 and listen during my morning walk. The aural comprehension is coming along, albeit slowly. I can wait. All I need is a calm male voice, decent enunciation, and no goddamned background music or sound effects. The guy whose whole channel seems to be about ukulelees (which is autistic as hell) hasn't uploaded any videos in at least a year or two, so I'm branching out to other vloggers. Today I found some guy who talks about health, and it looks like his channel might give me some practice with all the food-related vocab I've recently learned.

I would like something more peaceful than cardiac arrest. I don't want to die with my heart beating out of my chest. Maybe I could rent a small storage unit and use it to asphyxiate myself. I don't think I could afford enough gas though. Enclosed spaces are difficult to come by. Maybe I could take some of my medication for stomach cramps and then drink some bleach. It might still burn my esophagous too painfully though. But that wouldn't matter too much if I died soon afterward. No, shit. Household bleach is too diluted. The body has a problematic tendency to puke up poisons.

In terms of violent deaths, I think I could handle electrocution. Not sure whether I'd be able to find a large enough voltage source though. Maybe if I climbed an electric tower. I remember hearing warnings on the car radio when I was a kid. "Don't climb electric towers."