A bunion of a gal, I called Cousin Betty, leaned on a century-old redwood tree picking at a quarter-size scab on her elbow. She was unsightly, red all over with flakes of skin saluting the wind. When I thought about Betty, I visualized a witch hunched over a littered kitchen table yanking on the blue ligaments of a cold chicken leg with her silver-crowned, tobacco-stained teeth.
I couldn’t help myself.
This complete story can be found in the book Everyday Aspergers
I’ve been working on a fictional story for a couple years. I have about 65 pages scribed. The manuscript is still in the infant stages, but I thought it would be fun to introduce the characters to you. They are morphing, as I morph, so I look forward to seeing what becomes of them….I am thinking gorgeous, hot, dark, tall, hunk of unavailable burning love for the main character, though…just saying.
Veronica Cosh and the House of Mirrors
By Samantha Craft
Freda screamed on cue. “Put your lips together and blow, Baby! Blow, blow, blow.” Freda repeated the words again, kicking her stocking-covered legs up and down like a toddler splashing in a shallow pool of water. Jane tried her best to balance the wobbling ottoman, while shaking her head at Freda and letting loose a flitter of giggles.
Veronica shared a wide smile with Irene. “I wonder what ever happened to Mr. Blue Eyes,” she queried.
“Oh, scrumptious Mr. Blue eyes,” Freda quickly interjected with a Southern drawl. She fanned her chubby face. “What eye-candy!”
Veronica raised a narrow-necked glass filled with deep red wine. “To divine Mr. Blue Eyes!”
Irene, meanwhile, kneeled down in front of Freda and pulled out a small wrapped gift she’d hidden under the ottoman, and holding the present high in the air she cheered, “To finger-licking-good, Mr. Blue Eyes.”
“That’s a definite winner, or should I say wiener?” Freda laughed. All the ladies lifted their drinking glasses and toasted, “To finger-licking-good, Mr. Blue Eyes!”
Veronica set her glass down on the table in front of the couch, the light of the crystal lamp igniting a flame in the speckled-green of her eyes. “You guys shouldn’t have,” she murmured as she gestured to a pile of opened presents near Jane’s feet. Irene handed the gift to Veronica, while Freda ran her fingers through her bun of silver-gray, gave Veronica a sidelong glance, and referring to the present said, “Maybe this year, you can learn to play Love, Love Me Do.” Looking pleased with herself, Freda then exhaled an easy-sigh, smoothed her dress and crossed her ample legs, acting as if she was the sort of person that belonged in an English teahouse. After she spoke, Freda pinched off a sizable piece of brownie from the plate she’d held hostage on the arm of the chair. Veronica, in her excitement, tore through the wrapping like a kid in search of a golden-ticket. “You shouldn’t have,” Veronica exclaimed, holding up a small, unopened blue box, “but I’m so glad you did!”
Irene placed her hands on her hips. “What’s this make now, Harmie, fourteen or fifteen? Or am I aging you?”
The name Harmie had come into existence quite by accident after a heavy night of drinking. It was fifteen years ago, near the outskirts of Cannery Row when the same four friends had gathered to celebrate Veronica’s thirtieth birthday. Veronica, donned in a knee-length tight black skirt, had bent over that night to retrieve something—maybe it was her keys—no one can remember for certain. Nevertheless, Veronica had leaned down and on her way up the lead singer of the band on stage had pointed straight at Veronica’s rear end and shouted in his Irish-accent, straight into his microphone, “Put your lips together and blow, Baby!” Unknown to Veronica, in having bent down, the slit of her skirt had pulled slightly apart causing her pink panties to give a peek-performance. This one event, this one evening, had been wrong in Veronica’s eyes in so many ways. First off, Veronica didn’t wear skirts, but on this one rare occasion had been persuaded by Irene to evade her well-worn, easy-fit jeans. Secondly, Veronica didn’t like to drink alcoholic beverages, except once or twice a year, and when she did, as in all the previous nights of her birthday, she limited herself to one special drink, like a well-aged red wine. And lastly, and perhaps most importantly, Veronica didn’t frequent bars, and quite frankly hadn’t step foot in one since the 1980’s when her and her younger cousin used their fake IDs to sneak into a surfer bar in downtown La Jolla. All in all, Veronica avoided crowds, and how she’d wound up in a tight skirt, drunk in a crowded bar, was beyond her.
After Veronica’s panties had made their evening debut, Veronica had shot up and braced herself against the high circular bar table, her blushing cheeks mirroring the violet-hues of her trussed up hair. At that point, she almost jetted across the crowded pub but was instantly distracted by wide-eyed Freda spouting pink bubbles from her nostrils. It was then, as Veronica glanced over at the stage, that beneath the glints of lights, she spotted the lead singer still smiling. He gestured toward a stout bald man holding a harmonica, and said to the silenced crowd, “Put your lips together and blow, Joe!” He lifted up his frothing beer and toasted the house, explaining in his brusque accent, “Our band is named after the harmonica company in the town of Trossingen Germany, near the Swiss boarder, the original birthplace of the beautiful harmonica.” He then set his beer down on a barrel and pulled out his silver harmonica from his leather waist-holster. “Please, continue to enjoy this lovely evening, while I give you a wee sampling of what this lovely instrument can do.” For the next few minutes, he pressed his lips together and blew out Love, Love Me Do, as the tipsy ladies at Veronica’s table all sat mesmerized in their high stools.
Irene had clapped, secretly harboring a hope that the Irishman would hold an impromptu pop-quiz on the subject of harmonicas, offering his chiseled body out as the providential main prize. Her thoughts had travelled to the string theory she’d heard about at a recent quantum physics lecture. The professor, a rather distinguished-looking man, had compared the universe to a slice of bread: “Our world and the planets above are all a part of one big loaf of bread, one thin slice, and the other universes, or alternate realities, are right next to us, other slices of bread, completely oblivious to us, as much as we are to them.” Irene happened to know lots of miscellaneous facts. She’d inherited her father’s satiable appetite for learning, and unable in her early years to settle her mind on what exact career path to follow, Irene could tell you practically anything about the subjects related to music appreciation, C.S. Lewis, tarot cards, beginning watercolor, human sexuality, and cultivating irises. Irene would have been the first to admit back then that she was cursed with the decisiveness of a ricocheting pinball. She’d realized early on she wouldn’t be able to choose a college major, even if the life of her cat depended on it. And sighing to herself in the bar that night, she had pictured the morbidity of her circumstances, in only a way Irene could—she saw her plump cat spread out and nailed like a skinned-squirrel skin to a wooden fence. And in this drunken vision, heard an ominous voice call out from beyond: “Pick a college major or I’ll kill little Kit-Kat.” But Irene, at that time in her life, could not have made up her mind. Not even to save her precious Kit-Kat’s life.
Shaking her head from side-to-side, Irene had refocused on the singer on stage, and made a mental note not to drink too much again. The song ended. The crowd cheered. And standing at Veronica’s side, back on the same slice of bread with everyone else in the bar, Irene squeezed her eyes together, trying to make out if the lead singer was winking at her, and thought for a fleeting moment, maybe she’d study to be an optometrist.
When the band Hohner Harmonicas was on break, the brawny singer made his way past the crowded bar to the ladies. For a short moment Irene thought maybe, just maybe, it would be her lucky night. Shy Jane, who was now nursing a bottle of mineral water, was the second to notice the broad shouldered Irishman approaching. She had nervously tapped Veronica and then peered over the top of her gold-rimmed glasses, flashing her silver braces. Reaching the table, the singer offered a polite, “Hello Ladies.” Then, quite unexpectedly, he dipped into his holster, pulled out his silver Golden Melody harmonica, and wrapping his lips around the piece, and playing to no one in particular, blew out the tune to Happy Birthday. All the girls clapped, including Jane who kept her hands hidden under the table. The singer, upon finishing, slipped his wet harmonica into Veronica’s empty glass. “For you, Lovely, for being such a good sport,” he said. The word Lovely dipped down, up, and then down again, riding the waves of his Irish dialect. Dreamy sighs had circled the table. Mature Freda, busted up laughing. “Thank you, Mr. Blue Eyes,” she giggled. The Irish musician then dabbed Freda on her button nose, winked, and smoothly turned around. Sauntering back deep into the bar, he faded away gradually beneath the blinking lights strung across the high wooden rafters.
That’s how it all started, because that is the precise moment Irene, still panting from the mere brushing of the brawny man’s hairy bare arm against her skin, had held up the silver harmonica to Veronica, and proclaimed loudly, “Veronica Harmonica, press your lips together and blow, Baby!”
Through the years the name had been dutifully shortened from Harmonica to the more suitable and endearing, yet still annoying, Harmie.
A song I wrote this morning to play on my guitar today. Inspired by my friends I have met through blogging. I love you all so much and am ever so thankful for your beauty. ~ Sam
I have recently formed a friendship with a woman with Aspergers, and I have to say, it is the easiest friendship I have ever had. Though it is long distance, we chat every day, sometimes for hours. What I notice about her are the same traits I notice about me. Our lives and our thinking are so parallel, it is almost creepy.
Essentially, we think and process the same way. We have the same worries. We see things in the same light. We both require the same security in conversation. We need validation, and we give out the whole of ourselves. We are able to focus on one another entirely. Everything else can stop. We become priority. Talking to her is the easiest thing I’ve done in my life. She is genuine, open, and entirely honest. She analyzes everything she says before writing, and then analyzes it again after writing—just as I do. She frets over her words, as I do. She wonders whether she is good enough for a friend, too intense, too different. She over-compensates with love and compassion to be certain I feel safe and understood. She offers advice straight from the heart, only because she has a calling from God to do so. She sits on every word, measuring the potentiality for miscommunication and the probable consequences of her message. She spins and loops about what she has said, and how the words might affect our relationship. She thinks about me often throughout her day; I am never an afterthought. She loves me whole-heartedly. She knows when I need her to sit and be with me, and puts aside everything else in her life to show me she cares. She takes the time to write to me, no matter what is happening in her life. As soon as she knows I am available to chat, she comes my way with a smile, heart, or message. She is my soul-sister, mirroring me in every way, and I so love what I see.
Through my friendship with this special lady and through her comforting words expressing her own experience with friends, I am just beginning to understanding the difference between the way I communicate to friends I am passionate about and the way people without Aspergers communicate back to me. I am realizing that many times in my life, I was ultimately not rejected, but that my friends didn’t understand my communication style, misinterpreted my words and actions, and were actually incapable of duplicating my enthusiasm and dedicated attention.
I find this true today with another friendship I have formed with a very kind and loving person. Though this person is one of the sweetest souls I have met, at the same time, we communicate so entirely differently. This is no fault of anyone’s—and is solely the result of our brains being wired differently. Where I am as eager as a puppy to jump all over the conversation, day or night, anytime, anywhere, my new friend prioritizes, plans, evaluates, and places me within a schedule. Aspies generally don’t do that! We have this gift of focusing entirely on what we are interested in and what are hearts want at the moment. Everything, and I mean everything else in our world, disappears when we are wrapped up in our passion. Bills might not get paid, beds not made, pets not fed—we don’t neglect, we just forget as we are sucked into another realm.
To me this is a form of escape. I can do this with certain people, and my communication with them becomes my temporary haven away from all the stresses of the world—away from the constant overload of sensory input, and worries of everything that is shouting to be done, the continual spinning of thoughts, ideas, emotions, and need, the pounding fear of the world’s expectations and anticipated actions. In having a special friend, I am able to forget myself momentarily and be only a part of his or her world: just me on a stage with them, with everything else on hold. I’ve done this my entire life. And I do believe this aspect is a primary part of me, nothing to be fixed or changed; this is just me. Living on this planet, if I did not have opportunity to escape, I would surely hovel in a corner and never leave. This world is ultimately a very scary place for me.
I am also realizing that I hurt much more inside when I talk to people than when I talk to my new friend with Aspergers. This, again, is no one’s fault, and purely reflects the dynamics of two people with like minds joining verses two people with very different minds connecting. It does not matter how sensitive, caring, loving, pure and honest a friend is, if he or she doesn’t have Aspergers, he or she will never truly get me. That’s not to say I can’t have very fulfilling friendships with all types of people; it just means I know deep down inside that unless a person has a brain that functions like me, there will always be this piece about me that the other person will not understand. Whether he or she is aware of this makes no difference, because I am aware of this.
I am working through some hurt now. Trying to understand why my needs are entirely different than most people’s needs in a relationship. Backtracking through all the past times I overwhelmed, confused, or was misunderstood. I am acknowledging that broken relationship were not because of whom I am as a person. Broken relationships were a result of me communicating the only way I knew how.
Some of the things I’ve noticed happening in the new relationship I have with someone that does not have Aspergers:
1) I am sad that my friend is not always able to talk to me at every moment of the day.
2) I continually worry I over-shared, and at the same time cannot help myself from over-sharing. I get this overwhelming urge to share. And have this urgency about me to expose my truths, as if the world shall end tomorrow and if I don’t get my thoughts out, I shall die unknown and unheard.
3) I want to know EVERYTHING about my friend. Every fear, love, past event, thought, experience.
4) I wonder why the person has not answered my message in a timely fashion. (For me that would mean within a second of when I wrote the message, because I ought to be number one priority! Insert laughter here.)
5) I question why the person wants to be my friend, as I am so intense, so prone to having my feelings hurt, in continual need of validation, and questioning my worth.
6) I worry beyond worry that my friend does not see the purity of my heart. And when I am misunderstood a thousand daggers pierce my soul. For if my friend sees me as mean, manipulative, a liar, lacking compassion, closed-minded, angry, vengeful, demeaning, or the like, than I know he or she is not seeing me.
7) I want to be seen. I want to open myself up like a book so the friend can read every single page and know my beauty. I want to shine so bright that my friend believes me when I say I love unconditionally.
8) I try constantly to say the exact word. I fret over every sentence. If I am chatting online, I reread everything I wrote ten times, wondering if I chose the wrong words, wondering how the person will interpret, wondering if I am expressing the heart of me.
9) I want to delete most of what I say. I sometimes have an odd sense of humor, or don’t get something, like a simple word, or simple explanation. My friend’s innocent comment can send me off the deep end, send me spiraling down to earth, with a heavy landing, so that I feel deadened and crushed inside.
10) I find that I am so very innocent and naïve compared to other people. In conversation, I feel as if I am about the age of ten or even younger. A little girl still searching the eyes of the person I adore and wondering if he or she adores me. A little girl needed to be swept up and hugged and told how beautiful she is, how special, how loved. To know that I am unconditional accepted and very much appreciated. I long to be told, I love you, every few minutes, in order to feel safe, in order to understand I am not being judged, misinterpreted, or thought about in a “bad” light.
11) I am just realizing I don’t really understand love at all. Love to me means something entirely different than to most people. I don’t understand the degrees of love, how love builds, how friendship starts out at one level, and then grows into love. I love all at once. This huge bundle of love. And I plop this love right down at my friend’s feet. If I didn’t feel that bundle of love, I wouldn’t be the person’s friend. It’s very simple to me. Of course I love you, you are my friend. What does like you a lot even mean? Does that mean I like you for now, and might always like you, but if you prove to be more special, I might consider loving you? That hurts me. The word like hurts me. If love is the end point, then why am I placed at the starting line? Why wouldn’t a friend love me from the very beginning? Can he or she not feel the same connection, bond, and love as me?
12) I sometimes say things, hint things, and describe things that are very clear to me, and the other person doesn’t get what I am saying at all. I sometimes do things that take the whole of me, take so much risk, preparation, and forethought, but my actions aren’t met with the same extreme of emotions. Speaking to my friend sometimes is akin to tearing out my bleeding heart, setting my heart pounding on the table for my friend to see, and my friend casually walking by and saying, “Oh, that’s nice.” Only to then continue walking. I take out my heart and think the person will know, but my friend does not. My friend does not know that everything I say is a dynamic risk.
13) I don’t know how to turn down my intensity. I don’t have light and carefree days. I don’t have a way to shut me down or dim my emotion. I don’t even have waves of love. Everything remains level at a very high extreme. Nothing is little or unimportant. Nothing downplayed. Nothing forgotten. Everything remembered and brought back up to the surface over and over for reanalysis. Scenarios are played out in the mind of how I could have said something better. How I could communicate clearer. How I should communicate less. How I should be less enthusiastic. I swing a harsh whip at my mind, slash and slash with should haves and could haves.
14) Simple statements from my friend can send me spinning. What does that mean? Did I do something wrong? Did I blow this friendship? Was I too intense? What does my friend want me to say? How should I say this? What if I am wrong? What if I am misjudged? Did I say too much already? Should I laugh now? Should I offer support? Is advice okay? Am I a bore, a nuisance, a weirdo, too odd to keep around? Why is the conversation over? Why not talk more? Why am I not a priority? Am I not nice enough? Not kind enough? Not pretty enough?
15) I cherish my friend to no end. I would walk the end of the earth for my friend. I love my friend. I hold my friend up high. I see the light within. I see the purity of heart. I go straight to the soul and relish in the beauty. I see the love within. I see the potentiality for greater communication and connection. I see so much, but am standing across a bridge with a cavernous pit between us. I long to cross the bridge, but the bridge is broken, and I can only stand alone and stare out into the distance, reaching, and longing to touch.
The crows are among the world’s most intelligent birds. Crows can be aggressive, quarrelsome, and sometimes playful. The voice once heard is not easily forgotten. They have an astounding range of calls. There language is complicated and still being discovered. They are excellent puzzle-sovers, have good memory, and quickly learn. They live in community, support their own, and love for life. They hold the spirit of kings.
Everyday Asperger's 
