Ten minutes to Wapner

On Saturday I attended the monthly Autism NZ adult social group. It was a fascinating experience for me and an intimidating one at first – there must have been 25 people inside that not-so-big room. Sometimes in crowded places my head gets scrambled, and I wondered how someone with autism would cope trying to process all that information. To begin with we sat in an elongated circle and talked in turn about this month’s subject, namely things we collect. I had to rack my brains because although I unintentionally accumulate all kinds of junk, I don’t really go out of my way to collect anything. I did eventually come up with my coin and banknote collection, all the diaries I used to write as a kid, and those meticulously completed Wimbledon draws going back to 1992. People’s collections ranged from plastic bags to star charts and from soft toys to band T-shirts, but sci-fi DVDs were the most popular choice. After that discussion we were free to talk amongst ourselves. My first meeting was straight out of Rain Man – this bloke had been coming to these sessions since the third Saturday of August 2007 which was definitely the 18th; I wasn’t about to argue with him. In the end I only spoke to a handful of people but they were all really good people. Whether I have autism, even at a low level, I really don’t know, but there were certainly people I clicked with. If an autism “Richter scale” exists I imagine most of the group would have registered only a three or four, so they still needed friends (as I do) but lived mostly on the margins of society (as I do). I made a few cups of tea and did the dishes but overall I wished I could have been more helpful. One woman I met, as well as having Asperger’s, had spent eight months of the last year in hospital with a brain tumour. She was coping remarkably well under the circumstances. Like many of the people I met she was highly intelligent; she even knew what an actuary actually did. She was not allowed to drive and had nobody to pick her up so I took her home.

In other news, I’ve managed to acquire a new domain name. I tried to get my hands on it a year ago but alas the name I wanted was already taken. However it was just sitting there, not doing anything, presumably owned by someone who makes a living out of buying and selling names. A few weeks ago I bit the bullet and contacted the owner. He replied last week, citing a ridiculous figure in the thousands which had been generated by an online valuation tool and asking me “how much are you offering?” in aggressive bold 30-odd-point font. I offered him around a tenth of his figure and to my surprise he immediately accepted. I had all kinds of fun and games with PayPal but eventually it all worked out. His instant acceptance makes me think I probably paid too much, but as I plan to use the domain rather than sell it I don’t think my deal was spectacularly bad.

Friday was a bad day at the office, and was bearable only because it was Friday. I’d been pulling my hair out over many hours, grappling with about a hundred Spaghetti Junction-style Access queries. I painstakingly extracted a set of figures, only for my old boss to tell me (in not so many words) that they were worse than useless. For forty hours a week I’m worse than useless. She’s now given the task to one of my colleagues who I imagine will write some nifty SQL code (whatever that is) and Bob will be his uncle.

I did finally win a match point last weekend. We had a really good men’s match, mainly because my partner and I got on well. I could imagine I’d enjoy partnering him even if we got totally thrashed. For a while it appeared that might happen but I gave my partner a couple of simple tips (he’s got the shots but just needs a bit more match experience) and we turned things around for a 4-6 6-4 6-2 win. In the mixed we were simply up against a better pair and lost 6-4 6-3.
Dad is back from his rather exhausting two-month stint in the UK. Today and tomorrow I’ve got Italian, the psychologist, the men’s group, oh, and in a few hours I’ll find out if I really am still getting paid.