Kiss My Knits!

The Rules:

1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your LJ with the answers to the questions and leave the answers as comments on my own journal.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

1. What are the things you feel are the most important to teach your child?

My child? That’s probably going to be different than what others would choose, since she is mildly autistic. I guess the most important thing I’d like to teach her is how to relate to others on their terms. It’s not easy. I am absolutely thrilled that lately she has begun wanting to play with other children. The hard part is that she doesn’t know how. Social rules are one of those things that most people just kind of.. pick up. Not my daughter.

So how do you get started? How do you introduce yourself to another kid on the playground? We’ve talked about asking names, and she’s started doing that, and I’m very happy, but the technique needs serious help. Right now she will run full-tilt up to someone, sometimes get in their personal space, and say ‘WHAT’SYOURNAME??” This has freaked out more than one kid. After she knows their name… she’s stuck. She can’t figure out what to do next. I’m trying to get her to tell them her name back, but she seems to forget this and just wanders off after she knows their name. She’ll talk about them, what they’re wearing, what they’re doing, etc., but it’s more of a monologue than a dialogue.

Language and social skills are like music. You can learn the basics, you can learn technique and theory. But making the leap to taking what you know and playing jazz – having a conversation – that’s a whole order of magnitude harder. This is difficult for me to teach (the social skills, not the music, I’ve got the music down pat) because I myself am an introverted person. What it requires me to do is to step back and analyze my interactions and those of the people around me in minute detail, because it’s the details that make the difference between “she’s nice” and “man, she’s a close-talker.” Though truthfully, I would be thrilled if the only thing people ever said about my daughter was that she was close-talker. Constantly having to work on this is exhausting for someone who gains energy in solitude.

Ironically, my daughter is apparently very popular in her class, because she has a sunny disposition (except for the occasional meltdown) and is smart as the dickens. Now we have to make the leap to getting along with kids who aren’t already familiar with her.

2. What’s your absolute most favorite snack food ever? Would you give it up forever if you were told it would add 2 years to your life?

Snack food? That’s a toughie. I actually don’t eat a lot of pre-packaged snack foods. Does coffee count? Because I down that stuff by the tankerload.

You know me, though, and if it’s got chocolate in it, I’m all over it. The late, great, GM Tinsie actually made me a chocolate-covered plank after reading my Dragonrealms “Spotlight on Staff”. But would I give chocolate or coffee up forever if it would add 2 years to my life? Yes, in a heartbeat. My daughter needs me here.

3. I say love, it is a flower. Ahem. How would you explain love to someone who has no idea what it feels like?

Like, see, now I need the aforementioned coffee in order to write flowing prose. Instead, I’m sitting here with a bowl of cereal, a slice of bacon, and a kid’s carton of orange juice. Poor substitutes, my friend, poor substitutes.

Imagine you are lying outside in the tall grass on a sunny day, far away from traffic and noise and trouble. Your eyes are closed, and the sun is warm on your skin. You’ve been lying there for a good twenty minutes, long enough to decompress and let the worries of the day melt down through your body and into the earth. You are calm. Apart from the occasional birdsong or insect noise, things are very peaceful. As you lie there, you can hear a rising sound, like a whisper. Then you feel the pressure of the wind, and the sound gets louder, and you open your eyes and look around. The wind blows across the grass like a ripple on a pond, and it approaches you and blows your hair gently back. As it does, you let out a sigh of contentment, adding your own breath to the wind blowing across the field.

That’s what love is like. Peace, joy, contentment.

4. What is the most surprised you have ever been?

If you’re talking about physically surprised, one night I was working late at the TV station in an audio booth. I had the headphones on but the door behind me was open. I was very focused on mixing a voiceover when someone said something behind me. I literally jumped two feet up and turned in the air, which yanked the headphones off my head. I collapsed to the floor, flailing and grabbing at various bits of equipment as I went, DATs (digital audio tapes) raining down from the racks. Even though I was hyperventilating on the floor, the poor guy who startled me was clearly much more freaked out than I was. I still know him 12 years later and he still talks about it in disbelief. It was very cartoonish.

5. Should prostitution be legal?

Yes, and regulated. Sex work is a dangerous industry, fraught with disease and violence, and I’d like to see it become less dangerous for both the people who work in it and their clients.