wispfox

I found the right term, finally, for some sort of clothing which will provide the pressure I want! Maybe. :)

Pressure vests may be what I need.

Now, to measure my chest around to see if any of them actually might fit me, and find reviews for the ones which should fit.

I very much agree with this message, and would go if I lived in NYC.

(from an email list I'm on)

We'll be gathering at Seventh Avenue and 57th Street, 154 West 57th Street in New York City from 6 PM to 8 PM to hold up signs and hand out flyers to Autism Speaks sponsors going in to their New York City concert with Bruce Springsteen and Jerry Seinfeld. Come join us! Please RSVP to aneeman@autisticadvocacy.org or go to the facebook event page here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?invites&eid=205191180125

Please distribute to your friends, contacts and listservs!

WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?

1. Autism Speaks talks about us without us. Not a single Autistic person is on Autism Speaks' Board of Directors or in their leadership. Autism Speaks is one of an increasingly few number of major disability advocacy organizations that refuse to include any individual with the disability they purport to serve on their board of directors or at any point in their leadership and decision-making processes. In large part due to Autism Speaks’ public relations strategy of presenting Autistic people as silent burdens on society rather than human beings with thoughts, feelings and opinions.

2. They use fear and stigma to try and raise money off the backs of our people. Autism Speaks uses damaging and offensive fundraising tactics which rely on fear, stereotypes and devaluing the lives of people on the autism spectrum. Autism Speaks' advertising claims that Autistic people are stolen from our own bodies. Its television Public Service Announcements compare having a child on the autism spectrum to having a child caught in a fatal car accident or struck by lightning. In fact, the idea of autism as a fate worse than death is a frequent theme in their fundraising and awareness efforts, going back to their “Autism Every Day” film in 2005. Indeed, throughout Autism Speaks’ fundraising is a consistent and unfortunate theme of fear, pity and prejudice, presenting Autistic adults and children not as full human beings but as burdens on society that must be eliminated as soon as possible.

3. Very little money donated to Autism Speaks goes toward helping Autistic people and families: According to their 2008 annual report, only 4% of Autism Speaks’ budget goes towards the “Family Service” grants that are the organization’s means of funding services. Given the huge sums of money Autism Speaks raises from local communities as compared to the miniscule sums it gives back, it is not an exaggeration to say that Autism Speaks is a tremendous drain on the ability of communities to fund autism service-provision and education initiatives Furthermore, while the bulk of Autism Speaks’ budget (65%) goes toward genetic and biomedical research, only a small minority of Autism Speaks’ research budget goes towards research oriented around improving services, supports, treatments and educational methodologies, with most funding going towards basic research oriented around causation and genetic research, including the prospect of prenatal testing. Although Autism Speaks has not prioritized services with a practical impact for families and individuals in its budget, its rates of executive pay are the highest in the autism world, with annual salaries as high as $600,000 a year.

Link to our Joint Letter Against Autism Speaks, signed by over 60 Disability Rights Groups: http://www.autisticadvocacy.org/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=61
( signature cut for politeness )

Y'know, as someone who often has trouble knowing when people are serious, April Fool's day is just evil.

In other news, it's April! Moving month! My brain is being _eaten_ by this fact, regardless of if I can actually move things at any given moment.

*continues to succeed in not packing more things from her walls, to the probable relief of both jasra and metahacker*

Maybe tonight I'll try organizing things that I _have_ packed to make better sense for where they are going... I'm not sure there's really much of anything else I can pack until it's closer to us being moved out, so.

Oooh! I can bring things we don't want to appropriate locations... that's what I can do tonight. Makes more space, too!

Jittery girl is jittery!

Weighted blanket = win.

Nowhere near recovered from insufficient sleep for long period of time, but... I slept deeply enough for at least part of the night that the alarm _sound_ had to wake me, rather than the light portion.

It's a bit odd that the blanket's weights are in stripes, rather than throughout the blanket, but this does mean I can remove them when it comes time to wash it, and thus not kill washing machines or driers. And I clearly got used to it, and it was still useful.

So. Weighted blanket review = positive. We'll see if it continues to be as good, but I suspect it will. Way less exhausted today.

Win!

[edit: from http://www.stitchesbyanne.info/index.htm]

I will have a weighted blanket in ~2.5 weeks. From here. Yay!

Still February!

Actually at work today (really think I should try to work from home in February, so that I can be more functional). Too. Many. People.

And these are people I _like_ (as I just said to one of them on my way back to my cube to hide, "I'm tired from talking. Because yes, you are a people, even if less irritating than most.").

Depression and easily overwhelmed _do not combine well_. Tired, depressed, far closer no not coping than I like. And it's _sunny out_.

Wanna go home and hide. Or go home and be petted. Quietly.

But must do work now.

Kissy, cuddly sweeties are a great goodness.

Seeing more of jasra is also a goodness.

Still easily low energy, though.

Not dead yet!

Wish I could work from home all February. That would be _so_ _good_, since part of the problem is with sleep, and going into work requires that I get less sleep.

Nothing hugely social this month. Unshockingly, really. Not even gaming!

Left bunches of notes in 021408. And got some, too. :)

Lovely & sunny out, if cold. Very cold! But sun good. Sun totally worth the cold!

Wrist doctor noted that my swelling seems to be continuing to go down (I can't even tell it's there!), so yay. And I do still see improvement in how much I can handle both for strength work and for daily life things.

Yesterday, I got suspending and resuming to work.

Today, wireless works, and it was _so_ a bug that it wasn't.

Frustration levels are correspondingly lower, since now I can acutally test what I needed to test. And I need to put the data about this damn laptop somewhere so that I don't go through this every time.

I hate you, inexplicably non-functional wireless cards!

(both my laptop and the work laptop have evil, evil, inexplicably non-functional wireless. And they _worked_ earlier in the week! At least wired works, but I _need to be testing_ the work laptop's wireless. Fucker. At least the network is friendly to jasra & my laptop is happy enough with the wired connection)

*has hatred* *has no patience for anything today*

My music is pissing me off, so now I'm listening to Radio Paradise. But that is pissing me off too. Perhaps no music while jasra is out of the room anyway. But it's too quiet without it. Damned useless stimulus input desires signals!

Even canceled my massage tonight. No patience. None. *growls & bites things*

It is bad to have no patience when one's job is testing things, because they usually break...

Also, still no love for social interaction. Even if being petted is a goodness (I need a squishing machine!). At least jasra is used to me, so our date night last night was decent.

Also, self? Stop with the caffeine. Yes, upper. But shaky (which I already get when over-stimmed). And probably not great for sleeping, even if you do have it first thing in the morning.