The Smell of Leather

He'd lean hunched over his work, old but still strong hands pushing the needles in and out of the leather of the bridle. Over and over.  His hands stained with dye and laced with scars. He'd talk to himself, as he worked, most of the time I think he forgot I was ever there watching. I'd watch him for hours, fascinated watching whatever he was making take shape.

Peggy would be curled up in the corner, sleeping until the moment he moved. Then she'd look up to make sure he wasn't going anywhere before settling back down. She wasn't a pretty dog, he called her a blue leopard cur. I think she was a catahoula mix of some sort. She showed her years of hunting by his side. Brownie, funny little dog she was, would wander in and jump up my my lap sometimes. I never quite figured out how a chihuahua and a beagle would manage to breed.

The shop had a smell you would always recognize. Leather, dye, contact cement, and an oily metallic smell from the sewing machines and other strange devices he used. For the rest of my life that smell will be the most comforting smell in the world. My grandfather's shop.

Empathy

I'm glad I keep this blog around for the rare times I need to write something in a longer format that doesn't belong on my other blogs. This is going to be pretty personal and about some stuff I don't discuss much with anyone, so here goes.

I have Aspergers, this is now considered just part of the autism spectrum with the new DSM but I think it's a handy descriptor for a certain subset of autism. Supposedly Adam Lanza, the shooter at Sandy Hook Elementary School, also had Aspergers (however after Aurora that was also being thrown around about James Holmes and turned out to be false so I'm taking it with a grain of salt until more reliable information is available). This has led to a mountain of misinformation about Aspies, especially about Aspies and empathy. Including claims that Aspies lack empathy entirely, which makes us out to sound cold and unfeeling. I've seen some blogs covering these mosconceptions already but I'd like to share the perspective from inside my head.

I do not lack empathy or emotions. In fact I can often be overly emotional about situations many people would brush off, for example hunting for silver garland for the Christmas tree at 7 different stores because the tree just wouldn't be right without it. If your cat dies I'm going to empathize and offer you hugs or ask how I can help. However unless you are actively crying in front of me I'm likely to not realize you're sad if you don't tell me.

The problem is that I'm not good at reading how other people feel without explicitly being told. I can learn how to read people with enough time, I do a pretty decent job with my parents and my brother because I've known them my whole life. The same goes for my best friend who I've known since we were both about 5 years old (25 years). The longer I'm with my boyfriend the better I am at reading his emotions but 3 years isn't really long enough, we still run into situations where we misread each others emotional states (he misreads me, like many people do, because I'm not always expressive in a typical manner and will shut down when I'm emotionally overwhelmed).

I like to be social, and I try but my inability to understand non-verbal cues can be a problem. For example, I don't know when people want a conversation to stop or when to let people in and I can go off on tangents. I try to focus as much as I can when having a conversation but it's difficult, especially when I'm in a place with lots of other people or background noise. One-on-one is easier. When I was in school (and had no idea why I was so different) I often coped by just not participating unless it was related to schoolwork, because I liked school and learning. I still would rather read about how chromataphores in cephalopod skin work than go to a social space like a bar.

I'm not good at verbally explaining how I feel, often I don't know how immediately and it can take a while for me to figure out why I'm feeling the way I do and be able to explain it. I can write it because it's just me and my computer with no time limit on working out my thoughts.

None of this makes me a violent person. None of this makes me dangerous. None of this makes me mentally ill. All it does is make my interactions with other people and the world a little bit different. If Adam Lanza had Aspergers it's not what made him shoot all those people. I don't know what the root of the level of rage he must have had to kill so many people was, we may never know, but don't make people like me the scapegoats for what is a problem with our culture. Aspergers exists all over the world, but the US sees the majority of killings like this. Why?

Right and Wrong ways to Hit on a Woman at a Con

Wow, it's been a long time since I've written in this blog. However I wanted to write about my experience at PortCon that has nothing to do with my art or jewelry and is related to the issues being discussed in the atheist/skeptic communities related to TAM and other skeptic cons. PortCon is not atheist/skepticism related, it's a gaming and anime convention in Portland, Maine. I was there this weekend participating in the Artists' Alley so this was a work situation for me though also very fun (and I made a lot of money).

Two contrasting things happened while I was working my table which are relevant to the discussion on harassment and proper behavior at cons. One is an acceptable way to approach a woman at a con and the other is a wrong way to do it. First the right one:

A man, around my own age or maybe a little younger, came up to my table. He really liked my work, asked me about why I create the pieces I do and how long they take to make and we chatted about it for a while, he took one of my business cards (which has my number) and before he left he told me he thought I was very pretty and had sexy lips. Definitely one of those moments that makes me consider the merits of polyamory.

And now the wrong one: A man in his 40s (I mention this to point out he was more than old enough to know better not because I have an issue with older guys, my boyfriend will be 39 in a couple months) kept repeatedly coming up to my table to talk to me about the most random things. I think in an attempt to find something I was interested in. Nothing in what he said was inappropriate but his persistence was (every 2-3 hours over 3 days). He kept returning after both I and my friend Dany made it very clear he wasn't welcome. I didn't report him but I was very close to doing so if his comments had elevated from annoying and random to sexual or otherwise upsetting in any way.

Okay so what in these two situations made them different? Are there times that comment about my lips would be inappropriate? Of course. However after chatting for a little while and gauging if the other person shows signs of interest (and I did, he was my physical type) is an okay time to do that. If some random guy, no matter how attractive, had sprung that on me cold it would not have gone over well. It's okay to hit on people at cons after having some interaction with them first and not using any pressure tactics (this means: don't corner them, stop if asked, and otherwise treat them as a human being and not meat). What is not okay is repeatedly approaching someone who is not interested and has no way to retreat, I was working my table I couldn't just leave the con (I was barely able to leave my table to eat and use the bathroom) because I agreed to be there the whole weekend and had several thousand dollars worth of merchandise with me.

It's frustrating to me that some people don't respect others enough to care whether the attention is wanted or not. I shouldn't have to worry about being harassed at an event where I am working and unfortunately regardless or whether an event has a harassment policy it's likely to happen. The difference is that when there is a harassment or conduct policy in place people who are harassed have a means of recourse. I'm glad my experience at PortCon was overwhelmingly positive and the negative bits didn't rise to the level of needing to involve the security staff but I was glad to know they were around and available. If I didn't have that assurance I'm sure I'd have felt a lot less safe even in such a crowded area as the Artists' Alley.

Christopher Maloney is a whiny quack

Naturopathy is pure quackery. It is an amalgam of dangerous alternative treatments mixed with some effective advice on nutrition. It is not medicine, it is not science, and it is not evidence based. If you want a good take down of why it isn't I direct you to this article on Science Based Medicine written by a real doctor.

Christopher Maloney is a naturopath here in Maine. He wrote a terrible article promoting pure nonsense for the treatment of flu and recommending against vaccination. Head over to Dr. Steve Novella's post on Neurologica for more on why his claims are not just useless but dangerous.

Apparently some years back my state got hoodwinked into allowing Naturopaths to call themselves doctors. On the grounds of that ridiculous law he (or someone supporting him, this is unclear) forced the shutting down of Michael Hawkins' wordpress blog when he called out Maloney and his useless treatments. Christopher Maloney is a quack. He is promoting unscientific nonsense that is an insult to real medicine to even be compared to it.

Also shame on Wordpress for this sort of censorship.

Memories are Strange Things

It's funny how you can go months without thinking about someone. Then you find something they gave you and it hits you again that their gone.

When I was in college I was fairly briefly involved with a guy. Despite that it was pretty intense, Dave is the only guy I've been with who was as into BDSM as I am.  One of the first times we met it was because there were plans for a play party around halloween. Not going to go into detail about the party or our relationship, those are memories I'm not ready to share and definitely not on a blog anyone can read. It was complicated in many ways and didn't last very long. We did remain friends afterwards though there were some uncomfortable moments.

Skip ahead a year and a half later, I had left college and drifted apart from my friends there a bit. Then I get an email saying he'd died. I'd never lost a friend before, never anyone my own age to have it be someone I had feelings for made it really hard. It's been 6 years but the pain can still feel fresh.

I came across the collar he gave me, just a play collar it was never meant to be significant, but it's the only thing I have that he gave me. It just brought it all back. Time doesn't heal everything, it makes the memories retreat back in your mind so they don't come out as often but when they do nothing has changed.

Fun with Twitter

Last night Twitter had one of it's little hashtag memes going and I joined in. It was a lot of fun so here were my contributions to the #worldsthinnestbooks:

• "Correct Predictions" by Sylvia Brown 
  
• "The Art of Blending in" by Lady Gaga  
• "How to detect a fake autobiography" by Oprah  
• "Understanding Evolution" by Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron  
• 'How to run an investment firm" by Bernie Madoff  
• "Introduction to Aristotelian Philosophy" by Jessica Simpson  
• "Preventing Infectious Diseases" by Jenny McCarthy  
• "Problems that can't be solved with explosives" by Adam Savage and Jaime Hyneman  
• "How to have a successful marriage" by Elizabeth Taylor  
• "Understanding Germ Theory" by Bill Maher  
• "Successful Public Relations" by Fred Phelps  
• "How to Invade Russia" by Napoleon Bonaparte  
• "Answer to the Question of Life the Universe and Everything"  
• "Successful Faith Healing"by Peter Poppoff and Benny Hinn  
• "People God Loves" by Fred Phelps  
• "Guide to Modern Psychiatry" by L Ron Hubbard, forward by Tom Cruise  
• "How Homeopathy Works"  
• "Altruism" by Ayn Rand  
• "Landing a Probe on Mars" by the Russian Space Agency  
• "Recording a Clean Podcast" by @GeorgeHrab  
• "How Old is the Earth" by Ken Hamm  
• "Winners of the JREF Million Dollar Challenge"  
• "Contraceptives" by Michelle Duggar  
• "Ethical Business Practices" by Kevin Trudeau  
• Okay last one, dedicated to the SGU: "What I love about birds" by Perry D'Angelis  

Most of these of course are of a skeptical nature and pretty sarcastic. However I do have to say I love Mythbusters, George Hrab, the JREF, and the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Perry is greatly missed as a co-host on the SGU.

Stopping Fear and Misogyny

Recently a story was published in Wired magazine by journalist Amy Wallace titled "An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All". I've been vocal on Twitter for quite some time about my support for vaccination and I totally agree with Ms. Wallace and the vast majority of doctors and medical researchers that vaccines are safe, effective, and have probably saved more lives than any other medical advance. Vaccines wiped out the most horrific infectious disease of all time, smallpox, and has nearly wiped out polio.

This debate has recently become very personal to me and here is the reason why:

That adorable newborn is my nephew Joshua, as I'm writing this post he is a mere two weeks old. I shouldn't have to be scared that he'll contract whooping cough before he's old enough to be vaccinated. Unfortunately because of anti-vaccination fear mongering, based on faulty and anecdotal "evidence", mean that herd immunity is crumbling and he's in danger now.

It's also personal in another way. As I found out this week from Orac's blog (and reminded again by Dr. Isis) Amy Wallace has been the target of some really vile misogynistic attacks such as these:

I've been called stupid, greedy, a whore, a prostitute, and a "fking lib." I've been called the author of "heinous tripe."

 J.B. Handley, the founder of Generation Rescue, the anti-vaccine group that actress Jenny McCarthy helps promote, sent an essay title" "Paul Offit Rapes (intellectually) Amy Wallace and Wired Magazine." In it, he implied that Offit had slipped me a date rape drug. "The roofie cocktails at Paul Offit's house must be damn good," he wrote. Later, he sent a revised version that omitted rape and replaced it with the image of me drinking Offit's Kool-aid. That one was later posted at the anti-vaccine blog Age of Autism.

I've been the subject of this sort of attack myself and it generally rolls right off my back because it reflects more on the person writing them than it does on me. However it is a symptom of a disgusting aspect of our culture where insulting a woman's sexuality is often used to silence them. I don't want my nephew to grow up and see it as acceptable to do so. I know that his parents, grandparents, and I will teach him otherwise but we'd be blind to think there will not be other influences on him such as the media.

NECSS

So I attended my very first skeptical event over the weekend, the Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism in New York City. It was a lot of fun, I got to meet so many great new people. The conference itself had some wonderful speakers and panels.

Definitely the highlight of the day for me was the live Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast and George Hrab's performance during lunch. After the conference was dinner and hanging out at a bar with a bunch of other skeptics.

The lowpoint of the trip was the subway. Saturday night it took about 2 hours longer to get back to the hotel than it should have due to rerouting and delays. My feet were killing me so I was really cranky.

Huge thanks to Mark who set everything up so I could go and for putting up with me when I was feeling so crappy Saturday night.

Atheist Spirituality

I know that title is a bit of a contradiction but bear with me on this. Today on PZ Myer's blog he posted a very snarky response to this article that argues that humans are hard wired for religious belief. I strongly disagree with that article as well but I'm not going to be so snarky.

There are many reasons why humans invented religions but this is about that feeling of spirituality that so many people feel, from evangelical Christians to devout Muslims to Buddhist monks. This brings me back to the contradiction in the titles of this post, we don't really have a good word to stand in for this feeling when it's not religious in nature. Awe and wonder come close but I don't think they quite say it so for lack of a better term I'm going to use spiritual an mean it in a totally non-superstitious sense.

I think that argument of humans beign hardwired for religion confuses that sense of awe before nature and spiritual emotion that humans have. Those feelings I think are hardwired into us, back from the time when nature was an almost total unknown, the source of life and destruction (as it still is but we understand much of it now and what we don't understand we have the tools to learn).

That feeling led our ancestors who hadn't yet developed science to create mythologies that explained and channeled that spiritual emotion. However just because we have this emotional response built into our brains doesn't mean it has to or should be channeled into worship of some higher being. It just as easily can be channeled into a wonder and love of the universe and it's immenseness and beauty. You don't need a god to feel that, there's no emptiness to being an atheist we've just found that we don't need religion to feed that emotional need.

The universe is more than enough for that. I look up and see the stars and realize that the atoms which make up my body were once inside stars like those. As Carl Sagan said "We are all made of star stuff" and that knowledge invokes in me this amazing feeling that is probably the same as the feeling many religious people feel in church.

Trying to Get This Blog Rolling Again

Yeah, I know I haven't posted here in about a year. In the last year things have changed a lot for me so I thought I'd start this blog up again to have a place to write a lot of stuff that just doesn't fit in my other blogs.

Don't expect a lot of posts here, this is more an outlet for the stuff I don't have space enough to say on Twitter. Do expect me to talk more about my skepticism and atheism because I've become a lot more involved and vocal about those topics.

Squidoo Payday was Today

If you still don't know Squidoo pays the people who use it every month. The pay is based on how well your lens did during the month (there is a two month lag, I was paid today for June). So what was the total?
$170.04

That's not a bad total I think for doing something I enjoy.

Look at the Squid Goodie I Got!

It pays on more than one way to make lenses on Squidoo. Not only do I make money every month from my lenses since I have so many lenses I was named a Giant Squid and got this cool t-shirt. Hanging out with me in the photo is Lucky the chicken, she's almost recovered now after being injured during a big rainstorm.

Expanding my horizons a little on Squidoo I'm now taking orders for custom designed lenses.

Animal Updates

You can check out my Squidoo lenses to see the newest photos of the llama, pheasants, and chickens. Big changes in all of them.
Lauren the Llama
Raising Pheasants
Raising Barred Rock Laying Hens

Oh yeah, and my dad brought home a piglet. Here's the picture of Hammy, and yes he is being raised for meat that's why we named him Hammy so we don't get emotionally attached.

What I've Been Up To

Just a quick update on recent happening. I had a very nice birthday on the 9th and I'm now 26 years old.

I've been very busy making new Squidoo Lenses here they are:
Make your Handmade Products Stand Out!
Branding Your Handmade Products
Preparing for an Art or Craft Festival
Creative Uses for LED Lights
Noadi's Art Tutorial Lensography
Ammonites - Amazing Fossil Cephalopods

I'm also working on a directory of all my sites and lenses.

I have two art shows coming up the Shy, Novice, and Closeted Art Show in Bethel, Maine, on July 5th and the 41st Annual Norway Sidewalk Art Show in Norway, Maine, on July 12th.

Happy Towel Day!

Are you a hoopy frood who knows where his towel is? If you don't know what I'm talking about now would be the time to go read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

Towel Day is in tribute to Douglas Adams who passed away in 2001.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Great New Goody for Squidoo Users

Captain Squid has set up SquidTop. It's a short format blog platform for squidoo users to use for promotign their lenses, giving squidoo tips, etc. If you're on Squidoo you should check it out.

Waiting for Chicks

Bet that title tricked you, I'm talking about baby birds. I have 6 barred rock hens (going to raise them for laying eggs) and 4 pheasants (because my dad's always wanted them) coming hopefully tonight. It's going to be an interesting experience, I've raised chickens before but pheasants are new to me.

In much less happy news my cat Hearts died yesterday morning. She had been sick for quite some time so it wasn't a surprise, still hit me hard though. She was 12 years old and I had helped deliver her litter so she'd been a part of the family for a long time.

I'm a Giant Squid

I had a complete surprise tonight when checking my mail. I had a message from Squidoo telling me that I was a Giant Squid. The Giant Squid are a select group of lensmasters on Squidoo who have a minimum of 50 great lenses.

I'm totally shocked because I wasn't trying to become a Giant Squid. I made all my lenses for other reasons, I never even expected to have more than 50 lenses. It has some cool benefits like sneak peeks at new Squidoo features, a nifty badge, and a few other goodies.
Seriously if you aren't on Squidoo yet you should be! It's fun and you even make a few bucks.

Squidoo Happenings

It's funny the way one Squidoo lens can lead to a bunch of others. Here's a fun series of lenses that all started with one.

Cabinets of Curiosity
During the Victorian era Cabinets of Curiosity were all the rage. They collected natural specimens, fossils, artifacts, and oddities. Take a peak into that world.

That led to researching both hoaxes and handmade additions to a cabinet of curiosities. Which led first to a lens on P.T. Barnum and then to one on Cephalopod Craft Patterns.

P.T. Barnum
Introducing the greatest showman on earth, P.T. Barnum. The founder of the modern circus, purveyor of hoaxes, and owner of a long lost spectacular museum.

Cephalopod Craft Patterns
Make your own stuffed octopus, squid, and cuttlefish. Free crochet, knit, and sewing patterns for cephalopods (and a few other sea creatures thrown in).

Cephalopod Crafts led me to run across the site of Helle Jorgensen who creates crocheted sea creatures using recycled plastic bags. Which led to:

Making Your Own Recycled Yarn
Make cool stuff and help the Earth at the same time. If you like to knit, crochet, or any other yarn craft have a go at using recycled materials. You can make your own yarn using plastic bags, thrift store sweaters, scraps, and t-shirts.

The Irony of Maine in the Spring

It is around 75° F outside right now and I'm sitting here in the house with all the windows open and wearing shorts. Outside it's bright and sunny, daffodils and other early spring perennials are popping up in the garden.

The truly funny thing is that there's still quite a bit of snow on the ground! This winter saw over 150 inches of snow fall here, that takes quite a while to melt even in the bright spring sun.