Randomness

[JadziaKathryn]

I was reading a review of Born on a Blue Day about an autistic guy who thinks of days of the week as having colors, and I thought, well of course they do. To me, Monday and Wednesday have always been blue, Tuesday is yellow, Thursday is orange, Friday is also orange but a brighter shade, and Saturday is green. Sunday is white or grey.

I'm not really kinaesthetic, I don't think, and definitely not autistic. (This guy taught himself Icelandic in a week. I immediately went hmm. Hoshi as an autistic savant. That could be really interesting. I think someone else here already thought of that earlier, though, didn't they?)

Anyway, I just always associate those colors with those days, or at least with the words for those days. Is that really so unusual? Doesn't anybody else here do that?

Hmm, it's a little hard to picture Hoshi as autistic. She seems to interact with people just fine.

It's interesting about days having colors. I personally don't, but it reminds me of The Story Girl, by L.M. Montgomery. I read it years and years ago and loved it. Anyway, the girl who told such wonderful stories had a similar view of colours - I don't remember the exact details but she had color associations, like for people. So that's what it reminds me of. You may note that I've come back from Australia with a tendency to now and again use British spelling. I'm sort of giving up on consistency for a while, except in my uni papers.

[Alelou]

Oh, I don't mean Hoshi as we knew her was autistic. I think it would make an interesting change if I were doing a reboot of the series, conceivably more plausible than the real Hoshi, whose stunning genius in language doesn't seem to be counterbalanced by any deficits at all (well, except in guts early on). Which I won't do, but you know what I mean. I suppose she'd then end up kind of freaky like Willow in Firefly but that can be kind of cool from a storytelling point of view. Someone who's brilliant but weird and scarily unpredictable.

It wouldn't be very Star Trek, though.

I certainly wouldn't worry about the British spelling HERE.

[JadziaKathryn]

You're right, it wouldn't be very Star Trek. But it would be interesting. Possibly much more interesting than the way Hoshi was written, if it was done right. That's sort of a big if. (And definitely one I wouldn't trust the Killer Bs with!!!)

Else, along the not-very-Trek lines, I wish they'd delved a little more into Terra Prime. Maybe 3 episodes instead. (And fixed the stupid stupid idea of sending TnT, not even disguised.) It'd have been interesting, too - and this is the really not Trek part - to consider it from an attitude that was a touch less black-and-white. That is, I'd have liked to see some rank and file Terra Prime sympathizers, regular and arguably sane humans, who more or less agreed with TP, and why, and if the radical actions really hurt support.

[Deci]

Gosh - I was reading all those comment on the previous page about snow and thinking about how I put my pjs in the freezer last weekend in an effort to make things cooler after having 3 days of 40C in row (It worked for about 2 minutes). Then we got a cool change and today I don't think it even reached 20C. After getting out my doona again last night I'm trying to remember how it was that I had the fan blowing all night with no bedcovers just a few days ago. Crazy, crazy, crazy. It snows here - about once every four years, but mostly just have frost. We're considered by the rest of Australia to be a dreadful place to visit because *oh horror* our temperatures might go down to -5C in winter!

(temps are in Celsius because I don't know the F scale (not even brave enough to try and spell it at the moment) - I just remember that in the old cookbooks 350F is 180C!)

I think have a main character with some kind of disorder is a brilliant idea. There was Geordie who had the physical 'disability' of being blind but it would interesting to have someone who suffered by a mental illness, or was somewhere on the autistic scale, had downs syndrome - there is any number of things. Of course in the future the argument could be that these problems don't exists - the universe is rid of disease, etc, etc (remember B'elanna's baby being fixed for some kind of genetic spine thing). But I think that's a bit of a cop out.

[Alelou]

I imagine part of the fear or portraying a character with a mental condition that actually exists, like autism, is that the interest groups will then begin to protest bitterly if anything is a touch disrespectful, unrealistic, too realistic, unattractive, whatever.... So it would require consistently brilliant and brave writing, and that ain't easy especially on a network schedule.

I can understand where the reactions come from too. Whenever I see commercials for "The United States of Tara" or whatever it is, apparently a comedy about someone with multiple personality disorder, it makes me vaguely nauseated. I had a friend with that and it wasn't pretty or funny. You could find occasional moments of black humor in it, I suppose, but overall it was just horrible. It was like watching an agonizingly slow-motion bomb go off in the middle of a lovely family, tearing it to pieces.

[Bether6074]

RSV can be kind of a big deal in babies, if I remember correctly. It's good that you had an alert doctor. I'm sure you and little Abigail must be happy to be home again.

[JadziaKathryn]

Alelou, I'm with you on "The United States of Tara." My experience with multiple personalty disorder, such as it is, comes only from doing a report on it, but it wasn't funny. Especially because the multiple personalities are often a psychological reaction to intense trauma. Not funny at all.

[Aquarius]

When I first started my hairdressing career, there was a guy with multiple personality disorder that came into the salon I was working at. Some days he seemed really, really normal, but others it was kind of disconcerting to work on him. The other girls I worked with said he had two personalities, but as I listened to him converse with himself, I thought I noticed three distinct personalities: the two that talk to each other, and then the one that comes out to deal with YOU.

I absolutely can't imagine living that way, or living with someone with that kind of disorder. As mentioned earlier, there were moments of dark humor in my experience cutting this man's hair, but for me it only lasted 15-20 minutes a stretch and then it was over, you know? He seems to be stuck with it for life, as is his family.

[Alelou]

My friend's issues only really began to spiral out of control after her parents died, who were of course the ones who abused her enough in childhood to cause the fractured psyche in the first place. That's a really ironic pattern I've seen play out in other people too, like the husband of a friend of mine who, after his abusive father died, started seriously abusing his wife (i.e. in more than his usual asshole ways).

It's kind of terrifying to think that the monsters you survived in childhood can come back and destroy your life just at the point when you look, to everyone else at least, as if you've truly escaped that past, even achieved notable success.

It's like a real horror movie.

[Aquarius]

That's so sad. I'm well-acquainted with a victim of child abuse, and while his personality hasn't fractured that way, there are still obvious signs of PTSD and social disorders. His mother was already dead when I met him, and when his father died it was kind of awkward--do you say you're sorry, or do you say "Cool, he's rotting in hell now"?

The gentleman who came into the salon, while I'm not a doctor and can't say for sure, I got the impression that his issue was a symptom of schizophrenia, because sometimes there was just one of him and other times there was as many as three--as in, sometimes he was on meds, and sometimes he wasn't. I don't know his familial situation but his wife often brought him in, who I suspect was also schizophrenic or something, because she and reality didn't exactly seem to see eye to eye, either, if you know what I mean.

[Alelou]

Oh boy. I think those are the kinds of customers you might not want too near the scissors.

[justTripn]

Once I was getting my hair cut by this guy at a beauty parlor right around the corner from my house and somehow he started talking about this reporter he couldn't stand who lived in the neighborhood and did I know him (because my husband works at the paper). I was going, "That names sounds familiar . . . why does that name sound so familiar?" Then the guy says that it was his brother who famously just killed his wife and himself in a murder/suicide in the neighborhood in the past year. The hated reporter had said something to the effect, "Well, it figures something like this would have happened given the background. . ." Well of course the bother cutting my hair didn't see it that way and went off on a passionate rant. I keept really quiet, except for "Oh wow. Uh, huh . . . I see." YIKES!

[Alelou]

And he had the scissors in his hand!

When you're related to someone who works at a newspaper you get to hear crap about it all the time. Ain't it fun? Almost as good as being a teacher and having to listen to people complain about what an easy life teachers have.

I'd like to see these people try it sometime. Reporting OR teaching.

Grrrr.

[Bether6074]

Yeah. Abby is finally much better (nearly 2 weeks later) and Hubby is over his stomach bug.

Our Valentines' Day: Eric is walking my co-worker (his employee) down the aisle at about 3 PM. Don't ask. So with everyone at work attending the wedding, I have to do the night shift at the store. So we won't see each other all day long. How romantic. Oh well. I just want to see the video of this. He's endured a lot of teasing over the past few weeks.

[Alelou]

Glad Abby is better and condolences to you on your Valentine's Day.

Don't feel bad. The highlight of mine is that I managed to get my husband to get me a bouquet at the supermarket Thursday.