One of my FB Notes

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Dear Mom, woW!  I just realized how several different repetitive behaviors I have engaged in through out my life since childhood strongly support a diagnosis of Aspergers Syndrome/HFA=High Functioning Autism!  You were right!  My OGrady male messed upness did come from the genes!

 

For instance... As a four and five year old Sitting on our South Melvina living room carpeted floor in front of the old Braun Hi-Fi you and Dad had playing and listening to records for hours... Sometimes the same one over and over again...  Mom, I remember! Cindy, Oh Cindy,  Cindy don't...

 

I was always very good at repetitive tasks.  For instance, mowing our yard grass on 69th Court.  I used to regularly mow, what?... Four or Five Hundred lineal feet of Creek Bank?... That small, light, aluminum two cycle engine Lawn Boy brand rotary mower.. Standing tall, leaning back straight back  for balance, wearing Dad's golf shoes with the spikes for foot anchors, one handing the mower a good fifteen inches or so off of my right side... Pull Mower Up!, step right!, mower over one row right, GraviTY faLlll! Pause! Repeat... Repeat.. Ad infinatum. I came close bunches of times to whacking my right foot toes off of me!

 

Our pool filter manufacturer never intended for the device to be maintained the way I did it... NO!  Their back wash method of removing the dirty filter medium, was way to efficient for me! (And interestingly, very inefficent as to performance issues!)... Which is why I preferred to painstakingly remove the dozen or so large bolts securing the units cover, completely disassemble the center shaft of the twenty five rubber gaskets and twelve fabric discs, cart them over to the bridge over the creek, flush the dirty earth from the discs into the creek with the garden hose, and then have to completely reassemble everything!  We never thought about it back then, but I  really think we were helping to pollute the Cal-Sag canal!

 

I have this thing since early in grade school... I loVVE to hold the back of my right hand against my lips, moisten my skin with my saliva, roll it around a little from under my nose to mid chin, breathe and blow on it softly a while so as to evaporate the moisture somewhat and thennn.. Sniff! Sniff! Roll it, Dry it, Sniff! Sniff SniffSniff.  The scent is overwelmingly intoxicating for me.  It works best either with a way clean mouth, (immediately post teeth brushing) or sometimes when the breath gets little stinky it's a little different... but not too stinky! I got teased and picked on wayY badD in high school because of this behavior.

 

Or, how about the time when I was eleven or so, maybe half way through the time span taking piano lessons, when I was bored with myself, sitting at the piano with Dad's long nosed pliers in my right hand, (I don't know why at the time I had them).  Somehow, I don't know why, (God Save me, PLEASE!), I took the tip of the pliers, gripped the overhanging top front piece of the ivory overlay on one of the bass keys... Bent my hand down... And - SNAP!  The SouNd was somehow intoxicating to my ears!  And, before I knew what I was doing... I had snapped a chunk of ivory off the top of several more keys to the right of the first.  (With a couple of spaces in between, natch!)  Only then did I too late, realize what I had done... I tried to deny doing it later, but Mom, you knew who it was right away as soon as you first laid eyes on the dastardly damage!  You were pissed!  OFF!  I remember Mom!  Yeah, and you also had cousin Jimmy's Piano's keyboard looking new again within a week as I remember!

 

Then there were all those employment tests I took at the Ford Motor Co. stamping plant in Chicago Heights in '91 or so. There are others (behaviors) too...

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