I Started a Blog. Woo. (1/19/15)

So my blog went live a week or so ago.  I'm still processing how to handle that.  

On one hand, I'm a step closer to getting toward my goal: speaking and writing about the autism spectrum and what it's like to be here.  On the other, I can now kiss my anonymity goodbye.  I won't be recognized any time soon, like some actor or famous author, but putting my name up, and possibly a picture, will mean that I can no longer have fair expectations of being a private citizen.  Not if I want to succeed, anyway.

The point, after all, is to give people a viewpoint, build trust, and encourage them to ask questions.  I can't do that hiding in the shadows of the Internet and the real world.  I have to go out there and proclaim myself.  It's a big step.  

Maintenance-wise, I think I need to start categorizing posts by "time specific" and "non time specific."  The reason is that right now, posts are going up from around July.  (Yes, it took me six months from writing posts to actually posting them.  In my defense, naming a blog is really hard.)

To avoid confusing my readers, I think I'm going to have to fast-track the time-specific entries to post first, and then use the general musings as buffer.  Presently my buffer is unsorted, and extends all the way to the end of March.  But at 2 posts a week and it being nearly the end of January already, that's going to go fast.  

I hope my blog doesn't get confusing to people.  I did date them according to the day I wrote them.  Hopefully that helps.  

Naming things is really hard, though.  Originally I had no idea what to name my blog, just that Kelsey Timmerman all but informed me that I was making a blog now, immediately.  Since he's generally a very quiet, polite, unassuming man, and he felt so strongly about this, I took the advice and started writing there instead of in my book draft.  Normally I'd ignore such advice, but he's a published author and a very competent businessman.  By now he has the link and is probably reading each entry.  Hopefully it's been worth the wait.

Chris (my boyfriend) ended up figuring out the name.  Originally, a friend of mine had thought up "Aspierations" which works marvelously with my first entry.  Unfortunately, an enterprising mom beat me to it.  More power to her and her kids.  After sitting glumly for months on the name "Aspierations" and variations on it, I spiraled into a sulk.  Chris noticed, and started trawling Wikipedia's article on autism for ideas.  He came up with "the honest autist" first, but I found the final word somewhat archaic and alienating.  I don't think most people on the spectrum think of themselves as "autists."  I sure don't.  Fortunately he also came up with "the realistic autistic," which fits on two different levels.

First, my general mentality is caught somewhere between optimism and pessimism.  Growing up on the spectrum without a diagnosis or therapy was difficult, and ruined the childish optimism I started with.  I dipped into cynicism for awhile, then slid into pessimism.   Pessimism is depressing, and I don't need the help being depressed, so now I try to balance both sides by searching hard for the truth of things.  Sometimes that's depressing. But at least it's real.  So I call myself realistic because I try not to look away from the truth of things, and most days I don't lean heavily towards optimism or pessimism.

Second, there's a general sentiment that autistic people are sort of a lesser class of people.  Perhaps this is because we're different.  Perhaps this is because we need help sometimes.  People on the spectrum who talk and can act like neurotypical people are sometimes accused of not really being autistic, or being phonies.  I fully expect to receive similar treatment now that I'm publicly revealing myself as autistic.  

As such, the title "Realistic Autistic" is sort of a jibe.  I'm almost a normal person to most passersby, but I'm not.  The diagnosis might as well be carved into my forehead.   The title also echoes my insecurities as a verbal person on the spectrum.  In speaking for myself, I end up speaking for nonverbal people on the spectrum as well.  That's the problem with being a minority.  Whatever you say is taken by the majority to be the opinion of the minority.  I'm going to have to reread John Elder Robison's essay on the matter, and maybe come up with an answer of my own.  It's a hard place to be.  

At present I'm having trouble getting Google to recognize that this blog exists, and that it should please list me in the search results when somebody types "realistic autistic blog" or even "realistic autistic blogspot."  The latter, at least, you'd think would turn up my blog, but it hasn't yet. 

In addition, there's roughly a million webmaster tools (ie: make your site work better), and I can't figure out how to use any of them.  Maybe if I sacrifice an unused USB stick to Google, it'll work?  (I'm kidding, obviously)

Prior to posting entries on Blogspot, I was writing them on Evernote and another website.  I've found that while you can copy and paste the entries over, the Blogspot text editor occasionally interprets the entries in wonky ways.  I've had to dust off my decade-old knowledge of HTML to try and fix the problems.  Shockingly, I've succeeded so far.  I can't remember what version of HTML I learned, but it definitely wasn't today's.