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matrixrefugeeThis morning, it was so hot and sticky, I got ennervated to the point that I literally crawled back to bed after breakfast and didn't get up till a couple hours before I had to leave for work. Once I got there, I felt like bashing in the teeth of the damn whiny teenagers who drove to work or got rides from their parents to work in their air-conditioned little cocoon-cars, while I had to walk to work in the blazing sun. And if they asked me why I don't drive, I'd shoot back that my the wires in my brain are fracked-up six ways to Sunday, which makes it nigh impossible for me to drive without being in a constant state of agitation, which therefore makes me a road hazard even though I'm way more cautious than the average driver. It just means that I hesitate too much when I pull out, or I freak out behind the wheel if something unexpected happens. It's called Asperger's Syndrome, which is an autism spectrum condition. It means I over-react if I get too over-stimulated, and believe me, for me to drive is for me to ask for an AS moment, and I don't like those since afterward, when my brain has stopped fritzing out, I feel bad for everyone who had to watch me spazzing.
I'm minded of this rather terribly-executed (but otherwise well-intentioned) made-for-TV movie I saw a couple weeks back, "Molly", which was something like an attempt to combine "Flowers for Algernon" with elements of "Rain Man". Plot capsule: A hot-shot businessman in his thirties finds out he has an estranged sister with autism who is now his ward since his parents have passed away. Now he has to juggle his career with caring for his sister; he finds out about a new experimental treatment for autism (And said treatment does *NOT* exist in the real world) which involves implanting healthy brain cells into an affected area of the subject's brain. Of course he has his sister undergo the surgery, after which she starts to shed her autistic quirks (thankfully, the script didn't have her become a boring, so-called normal person: she kinda went from classic autism to high-functioning atypical AS, or at least that was my impression. One scene which I really got a kick out of had her obsessing with "Gone With the Wind" to the point of emulating Scarlett O'Hara, as our heroine begins an innocently passionate relationship with a guy with dyslexia who'd been her best friend). But then tragedy creeps in: the implanted brain cells start to fail, and she's back to manifesting autistic quirks by the closing credits... But there were a couple of bits I couldn't help admiring: one was a good attempt on the directors' part to emulate what it's like to experience the heightened sensory perception that's part and parcel of autistic spectrum conditions: one scene has her sitting in a library, trying to read and getting really uncomfortable because she can hear every other person in the room turning pages in whatever they're reading. The sound editing was a little silly: they amplified the sounds to the point of being a bit ridiculous, but considering the medium, it's the best they could do with the technology they have. (It's really more like hearing a sound that's on the other side of the room, but you swear it's right next to you. Or there's something about the sound that just puts your teeth on edge, even though it's really a small sound.) The other bit was a brief monologue the protagonist gives when she's talking with a doctor; I wish I could quote the whole thing, and I swear it was something borrowed from the writings of Temple Grandin, a psychologist who is herself a high-functioning autist. The gist of it was something like: "All these sensations are rushing at you, so hard you have to pull into yourself and hold onto something small. And sometimes, there's just so much coming at you that you feel like you just have to scream. And when you do that, people stare at you at you in shame and act like you're not there." There was more to it, but it escapes me now...
Hah, long rant about AS...
But, there's some relief: A thunderstorm, the biggest one we've had all season, rolled through and knocked out the blasted humidity and heat (as well as making the lights blink). I swear it's twenty degrees cooler already. It's supposed to be *gorgeous* tomorrow, which would be delightful, since it's my day off and I'm making my weekly trip to Lowell, which includes my every-other-week jaunt to Larry's Comics.
I'm minded of this rather terribly-executed (but otherwise well-intentioned) made-for-TV movie I saw a couple weeks back, "Molly", which was something like an attempt to combine "Flowers for Algernon" with elements of "Rain Man". Plot capsule: A hot-shot businessman in his thirties finds out he has an estranged sister with autism who is now his ward since his parents have passed away. Now he has to juggle his career with caring for his sister; he finds out about a new experimental treatment for autism (And said treatment does *NOT* exist in the real world) which involves implanting healthy brain cells into an affected area of the subject's brain. Of course he has his sister undergo the surgery, after which she starts to shed her autistic quirks (thankfully, the script didn't have her become a boring, so-called normal person: she kinda went from classic autism to high-functioning atypical AS, or at least that was my impression. One scene which I really got a kick out of had her obsessing with "Gone With the Wind" to the point of emulating Scarlett O'Hara, as our heroine begins an innocently passionate relationship with a guy with dyslexia who'd been her best friend). But then tragedy creeps in: the implanted brain cells start to fail, and she's back to manifesting autistic quirks by the closing credits... But there were a couple of bits I couldn't help admiring: one was a good attempt on the directors' part to emulate what it's like to experience the heightened sensory perception that's part and parcel of autistic spectrum conditions: one scene has her sitting in a library, trying to read and getting really uncomfortable because she can hear every other person in the room turning pages in whatever they're reading. The sound editing was a little silly: they amplified the sounds to the point of being a bit ridiculous, but considering the medium, it's the best they could do with the technology they have. (It's really more like hearing a sound that's on the other side of the room, but you swear it's right next to you. Or there's something about the sound that just puts your teeth on edge, even though it's really a small sound.) The other bit was a brief monologue the protagonist gives when she's talking with a doctor; I wish I could quote the whole thing, and I swear it was something borrowed from the writings of Temple Grandin, a psychologist who is herself a high-functioning autist. The gist of it was something like: "All these sensations are rushing at you, so hard you have to pull into yourself and hold onto something small. And sometimes, there's just so much coming at you that you feel like you just have to scream. And when you do that, people stare at you at you in shame and act like you're not there." There was more to it, but it escapes me now...
Hah, long rant about AS...
But, there's some relief: A thunderstorm, the biggest one we've had all season, rolled through and knocked out the blasted humidity and heat (as well as making the lights blink). I swear it's twenty degrees cooler already. It's supposed to be *gorgeous* tomorrow, which would be delightful, since it's my day off and I'm making my weekly trip to Lowell, which includes my every-other-week jaunt to Larry's Comics.
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Date: 2005-07-28 01:15 pm (UTC)