I got a note from a senior faculty member whose communications with me always, always seem to be double-coded in a secret neurotypical language designed to make feel judged and put down, and yet paranoid and weird for reading too much into things when really no put-down was intended.

IMA just gonna say it: NTs, y’all exhausting to autistics. For all the whining and complaining about “how to handle children/people with autism” y’all really discount how much work and pain y’all cause us constantly. (Seriously I just saw a curriculum on autistic girls where one rubric of their behavior was “responds to teasing appropriately” and I am assuming the right answer is “girl is learning to accept bad treatment because that’s what we want from autistic girls” instead of what it should be (punching people in the nuts and throats).

Here was the statement: I see from Facebook your knitting needles are busy.

Now, is that a dig? IN the academy, you aren’t supposed to have hobbies. You are supposed to be research production machines. Doing one’s own garden when one could pay non geniuses to free you up to do your genius things? Unheard of!! So knitting. Tsk. Guess we know what this or that isn’t done.

Or maybe they were just noting that I share my knitting on Insta. I dunno.

ANYWAY, I went away from this interaction feeling super judged and I just wanna know: are the rest of you JUST SITTING THERE ALL DAY ON ZOOM CHRIST HOW HAVE YOU IMPLODED YET IF SO?

At least when we were on campus, even back-to-back meetings usually entailed GETTING UP AND GOING TO A NEW ROOM. Or a little jaunt across campus.

How can you stand to sit there and look at your own stupid talking face?

AND HAVE YOU NOT NOTICED THE WORLD IS ON FIRE AND PEOPLE ARE DYING AND TRANSIT IS DYING AND CITIES ARE STRUGGLING AND THE POLICE ARE STILL MURDERING PEOPLE WITHOUT APPARENT HESITATION AND 17 YEAR-OLDS BECOME THE VIOLENT WHITE SUPREMACIST DEATH FANTASY TO KILL SWEET KIDS WITH SKATEBOARDS AND THESE BILLIONAIRE LUNATICS ARE TEEING UP TRUMP AND CO FOR ANOTHER FOUR YEARS.

Knitting calms me and keeps me from screaming like this on Zoom. Is it any wonder I am getting a lot done these days? How are you keeping your rage and stress from killing you?