Hogmanay

I made up a variation of this posting last year, as well.  It's a reference point for my CS guests - so they can know what to expect from my schedule over the Hogmanay period.  Everybody knows that the living situation will be chaotic while you're all here.  But I think that'll just make everything a bit more lively and fun.

It'd be a nice touch if you contacted each other, as well.  Just so you can get to know each other a little bit, before you actually arrive.  Then you won't all be strangers.

The profiles are -

• Paula M Vieira Rosa
• Jimmy
• Aileen Riney and Jana Foxe
• Vivian and Valeria Van Hasselt
• Anna Griot and Cédric Philippe
• Karin and her friend

I'm sorry about the ads.  But if you just click on the picture, it should come up without them getting in the way.

This is probably the final list, but I'm not sure, yet.  Bruna's dates are flexible and it looks like her friends will only be here for Hogmanay - so they probably won't even stay in the flat for more than a couple of hours.

The place is pretty packed, but most of the time some people will be out and others will be in one of the other rooms, sleeping.  It's likely that we'll all be keeping different schedules.  Some people will be going to spontaneous parties and coming home at strange hours.   So the sitting room will be mostly for socialising until pretty late.

If you want to sleep, then grab whatever bed is available.  There is a tiny room with no windows - that has a single bed.  And there's a large room with a double bed and some floorspace.  The sitting room has two couches and some floorspace.  One of these can be folded down into a double bed.

You will probably end up sharing a sleeping space with someone.  The only strict rule I have is that a male guest should not get into a bed that is already occupied by a female guest, unless those two have already agreed that they're both comfortable with that.  But right now, it looks like there are only three male guests.  They are Jimmy, one of Bruna's friends and Cédric.  Jimmy has already said he can sleep anywhere - including on the floor - so that's cool.  Bruna's friend, like I said, will probably only be here for one night and might not end up sleeping here.  Cédric is Anna's boyfriend, so will most likely sleep with her.  

Anna was accepted as a guest pretty late.  She asked to stay until the 31st, but that might not be possible.  It'll depend on just how comfortable everybody else is with the limited space and on Bruna's final dates, once they're set in stone.  So I've accepted her for the first two nights she asked for, and the second two will be agreed on later.

The sitting room is likely to be for the hardy few people who will stay up late.  Tired guests should feel free to slip away and take a bed or floorspace in one of the two bedrooms, whenever they're ready to sleep.  Those in the sitting room will try to keep the noise down, but it might still get a bit lively - it's a time for parties, after all.

Anyway, keep your eye on this page, in case there are any further updates.  And I definitely encourage you all to send messages to each other, if you'd like to introduce yourselves before you arrive.

I'm sorry about the ads partially obscuring the snapshot below.  But if you click on the picture, it'll fill the screen without the ads getting in the way.

And if I don't have a note of your arrival times on the picture, then please let me know when you're likely to arrive so I can anticipate you.

And on the subject of nudity.  Everybody is cool with the fact that I'll be naked, so it's clearly going to be an environment where everybody's happy to let people be themselves.  And I don't have a dress code of any kind.  Wear whatever you feel like wearing.  If anyone else feels like being naked, I'll be completely cool with it.

The photoshoot

Things are starting to progress with the upcoming autism talk.  We had the photoshoot on the 21st of August, and Kobi recently sent me these pictures.

I'm not sure when the gallery space and the talk will take place.  I've got a feeling it might not be before Christmas.  With Fixers, events proceed slowly, but steadily.

Understanding social cues

In the last few days, I've felt increasingly troubled by my poor grasp of some pretty basic social cues.  I had four guests - two sets of French people.  A young couple who took the spare bedroom.  And two sisters who had the sitting room until last night.

Most of the problem, as usual, was my fault.  I spent the weekend at my cousin's place, having finally patched things up with him.  That meant sleeping on the couch, that created some shoulder tension that travelled into my neck and that brought on a migraine.  So, on Tuesday evening, when I got back home, I wasn't at my best.

At first, it was a lot of fun.  We played a game I've been developing, and that got to be pretty lively.  But then, later in the evening, the fourth wave of the migraine washed over me.  I took painkillers and only had a pretty mild headache, but my thinking became cloudy, my vision got pretty weird and I drifted out of the conversation for a while.  When I drifted back in again, everybody was chatting away in French.  I couldn't see an opening for me - not without forcing everyone back into English.  And doing that just felt like it would be arrogant.  One person dictating a conversation that five people were involved in.  So I went to bed.

They'd all been very polite.  They'd repeatedly translated things they'd said to each other and they'd definitely tried to involve me, more than once.  But they were still just translations of snippets of a conversation that I wasn't really a part of, any more.

There were moments throughout the week where we all seemed to have a lot of fun.  But there were also moments where it was a lot clumsier.  Repeatedly, my guests had brought in some beers or some food.  On the first night I had no problem drinking, because I supplied a few beers of my own, but then I ran out of money.  After that, I didn't join in with the drinking or eating, because I couldn't really contribute anything to the meals or buy drinks back.  If I'm eating someone's food or drinking someone's beer, I really like to be able to share.  If not now, then definitely sometime in the near future.

This week, I made an exception to that rule in the mornings, when coffee was offered.  And on the games night, I made a further exception, because I'd made a very slight contribution to the food.  But I didn't drink, because I felt like I'd shamed myself.  Everybody had pooled in some money to contribute to the beer, and my own contribution had been laughably poor; I added less than £2.  I tried to make a joke about how pathetic it was, but it still felt pretty cringeworthy.  A bit too true for it to be funny.  So I decided that if I didn't drink any of it, I didn't need to feel bad about how little I added to the kitty.

At first I made vague excuses when I was asked if I wanted a beer, but I soon realised that excuses weren't necessary.  All I had to say was "no thank you" and the subject was dropped.  That was pretty refreshing, since I didn't need to continually explain myself.  It's amazing how difficult it is to persuade people, sometimes, about the sharing logic.  They usually try to overturn the reasoning with a bit of fresh logic of their own and that just turns into a debate that usually concludes with me becoming a lot less polite.  Not actively rude, but definitely insistent that I'm just not going to take a beer.  I'm told I'm too rigid, sometimes.

So that was another barrier to the socialising.

Then, on Friday we all went out for a few hours.  We'd been planning this for a couple of days, so I'd been looking forward to it.  But then I accidentally got separated from everybody.  I'd got into conversation with a couple of girls who were promoting a play and staging a demonstration.  They were deliberately dressed provocatively and standing out from the crowd - pointing out that the way a woman dresses is not an invitation to sexual assault.  I told them that their message was one that would go down well at Crew.  I asked them for a poster and some flyers, then took those to Crew and suggested they might like to go to the show.  I didn't realise at first that my guests hadn't joined me when I went to Crew, but even then I wasn't initially concerned.  Two of them knew where the place was, and I assumed that were going to follow me there, in a few minutes.  When they didn't, I walked back to where I'd last seen them, but couldn't find them.

Now, that seemed to solve one problem - I was able to go home and get something to eat without having to make excuses when the time came for everybody to stop at a cafe or something.  I was disappointed at losing everybody, but at least I was able to get some toast.  And I figured that they'd get in touch later and we could arrange to meet up somewhere and start again.  But then, when the day went on and on and everybody stayed out, I started to wonder if I'd somehow caused offence.

And then I started replaying that conversation with the two performers.  I started wondering how that might have appeared to my guests.  Only being partially aware of what I do at Crew, they might have interpreted this random conversation with those girls as being a bit sleazy or creepy.  They might have been very offended by it and might have felt a lot more comfortable when I was no longer a part of their group.

Or, as I also suspected, it might have been a lot less awkward and tiring for them to have to continually translate things to the only person in the group who didn't speak French.

Later, when they finally did get back, they reminded me that I could have called one of them on her mobile 'phone.  This had completely slipped my mind.  Probably a good thing, because it was an international number.

And it was about then, that one of my suspicions was confirmed.  One of the girls made a passing reference to being tired out by speaking so much English.  I was amused, rather than offended by her slip, but she was mortified.  I said I was going to go to bed, so they could all relax.  She tried to stop me, and insisted I stay and talk to them, but I insisted that everybody would relax much more easily if they didn't have to accommodate me so much.  I remembered how tiring it was for me, when I was staying with family in Germany.  It was almost physically exhausting.  So I insisted that I wasn't offended and that I completely understood her comment and agreed with it, and I insisted that I was completely happy to leave everybody in peace.

Three of the guests actually came through to my room, shortly after that, and tried very hard to get me to come back and rejoin the conversation.  But I was fully aware by then, of how it would go.  They were naturally going to talk in the language that they were most comfortable with.  And if I was there, they were going to have to constantly translate.  And as we all got more and more tired, the translations were going to become more infrequent and sporadic.

The couple left early on Saturday morning.  And when I got up with the remaining two, I went to Gorgie City Farm with them.  I saw them getting ready to go out and they made a reference to the farm, so I said I'd join them and they agreed.  It was only later, that I got concerned about the fact that I'd just invited myself along.  I had completely barged in on their activity.  By the time that occurred to me, though, it was too late and I couldn't think of a way to back out again, gracefully.  So I got dressed and we all went out.

It was fun, though.  We didn't need to speak a lot.  We were too busy playing with the animals and making jokes to each other.  True - jokes rely on communication.  But the language barrier didn't seem like as much of a restriction this time.

We went back to the flat and I settled in for the next few hours, while the girls went back out again.  I had an art class in the afternoon, and we made arrangements to meet up at it.  I made sure they had the address and knew what time to get there.  Then I settled down and tried to kill a couple of hours.  It occurred to me that if I kept an eye on the time and if I carried the sketchpads with me, I could have gone into town with the girls.  But I didn't want to invade their plans a second time, so I held back from suggesting that.

Later, I got to the venue and set up.  Then, just when I was expecting the girls to arrive, I got a 'phone call from them.  I missed it and tried calling them back and then - after a couple of disconnected and aborted attempts, they finally got through to me.  I didn't get the details clearly, but I understood the gist, which was that they weren't going to make it to the class.  This wouldn't normally have been a big deal, but it was very disappointing, this time.  I knew someone else in Edinburgh who wanted to come to this class, but I hadn't been able to invite her, because two extra people was already pushing the limits.  Now, with those two having dropped out, I tried to get in touch with the other girl, but just couldn't manage it.  It was a very disappointing missed opportunity.

I wrapped up the class, then went home to shower and drop off the sketchpads.  Then I tried calling the girls again.  I figured that since it was their last night in town, then perhaps we could hook up somewhere.  I still wanted to show them round the city a bit, which was something we'd all been planning since the very beginning.  Even if all we did was watch the Festival fireworks and go home again.  They tried calling me once and I tried calling them four times over about four hours.  I got their answering machine twice, the 'phone rang out without being answered once and then I got the answering machine a third time.  At around 9PM, I completely gave up.

They got back shortly after 9PM, but conversation was clearly not comfortable at that point.  They told me they'd seen a comedy show and watched the fireworks and that they'd had a good time.  We didn't talk about the fact that I'd tried calling them.  I was too embarrassed to admit to being so pushy.  And I'm guessing they were too polite to make any kind of reference to it.  I went to my room and left them to pack their things in peace.

And even more disappointingly - if I hadn't tried so hard to join the two girls today, I could have done something else just as fun.  Crew had a barbecue this afternoon.  I missed the first two hours of that, because of the job I had to do, but I could have still turned up at the tail end of it.  If I'd just accepted that I wasn't going to salvage anything with my guests, I could have still had a bit of fun.  I wouldn't have inadvertently created a frosty atmosphere with my guests and there might even have been some food left.

The guests have all been very nice.  They've been very cool people.  And I might have got on with them a lot better, if I hadn't tried so hard to be part of their company.

Bad judgement

This is gradually turning into a sort of journal of self-doubt and paranoia and neuroses, rather than autism.  Like... every time I really screw up on something, or think I've screwed up on something, I start worrying at it and dissecting it and picking it apart.  I can justify its inclusion in an autism journal - barely - by relating it to certain autistic thought processes.  But then I remember that these are thought processes that a lot of people have.  Just... you know... probably that bit more acute in an autistic person.

So then I start wondering just how you measure that sort of thing.  How can you compare the levels of self-doubt I have to the levels of self-doubt you have?

I suppose, though, that I tend to have repetitive thought processes and these can easily trip over into obsessive thought processes.  And that's where the neuroses lie.  And that's when my brain just won't shut up and give me peace.

There are times when one mistake leads to another and another.  The initial mistake is bad enough, but then there are attempts to apologise or to make amends and each time the initial mistake is compounded and ultimately becomes much, much worse.

Sometimes it's impossible to know how to stop screwing up.

Thoughts on the gallery space

This is a recent email to Kobi.  Rather than go through all my thoughts, all over again, just to reproduce them in this posting, I figured it would be more effective to simply cut-and-paste the email.


Hello, Kobi

I'm a bit annoyed at myself.  I've lost the contact details of the producer.  I've forgotten his name, too - is it Andrew?  Anyway, I hope you pass this message on to him.

I'm also annoyed that I've got a bit of creative block with the photographic concept.  It's a little tricky to think of five images that summarise everything coherently.  But I think the key stages would be...

• Massage therapist.  Perhaps an image of me working on someone's back.  My form of therapy was delivered through clothes, on a specially designed chair.  The chair I used was an Oakworks Portal Pro.
• Starting to suspect I had autism.  This is a tricky part.  I'm not sure how to represent it without overacting it or overstating it.  Maybe just a face shot - let people add in their own interpretation.
• Car crash.  A potentially great visual, with some real momentum.  But I don't have a clue how to represent it.  Perhaps a picture of myself and someone standing in for my friend?  Shot through the windshield.  The moment immediately before the crash, where we're both looking tense and frightened - anticipating the impact.  I think it might potentially be too cheesy or cheap or impractical to show the actual impact or aftermath.
• Photoshop and creativity.  Maybe a scene of me sitting at a computer, looking bored.  I don't know - again, this could look cheesy.  It also might look too vague.  But perhaps - like the autism picture - it could let people add their own interpretation.
• Art classes.  A bit of a jump in the narrative, this time.  Leaping forward to things getting better.  But it could still work - and this is the picture that feels easiest to me.  It would just have to be a representation of one of my art classes.  It wouldn't be revealing, but it would hopefully show a moment where everybody appears to be having a lot of fun.

I have some other thoughts, if the format is a flexible one, though.  I was thinking that bits of text could link the pictures.  My own words - I could write things and they could be printed up and displayed next to each picture.  They would elaborate on the story.

I was also thinking that I could select some of my own pictures that could be printed up as well.  I realise that these would probably need to be vetted by yourselves and they would be at my own expense, but I think that if they were printed up postcard sized, they could definitely represent my work.

I might not be able to afford to print a lot of pictures, though.  So perhaps I could set up a digital display of some pictures.  A screensaver kind of effect somewhere would be good.  Perhaps they could be cycled on a projector?  I would love to have more than one projector displaying different types of pictures on different walls, but I'm sure that would be a bit ambitious.  It would surely look cool, though.

I am definitely getting very excited by the way things are going.  And to make sure I've got this straight in my head... I want to go through the format as I understand it -

I meet with the producer to discuss photos.  Then we meet again to actually take the pictures.  Fixers will arrange for a space - a sort of gallery event - to display large copies of the pictures.  I can invite various people along - like family and friends, as well as representatives of Crew 2000, Autism Initiatives and Number 6?  Some other people will be invited along by Fixers.  At this event, at some point, I will be given a platform in which to talk to everyone and generally tell the story of how it all came about.  The space could be the old Forest Cafe, if it's possible to get that building.  But if not, then anther building that has been empty and is a little run-down for some time.

If I've got that broadly right, then I'm definitely excited.  And I'd also like to ask - could the space be available for a little while?  It would be good to have time to get everything set up and to welcome in random passers-by as well as people who have been invited.  So it would be really good if it could be available for more than just the one night.

I'm going to create a dropbox folder with the pictures I took of the Forest Cafe and send you an invitation to view it.  Would you mind forwarding this email - and the dropbox invitation - to the producer?

Thank you.

Graham

Rik Mayall

Another one of my heroes just died.  I've followed Rik Mayall - sporadically - since I was a teenager. The best thing I ever saw star in was The new statesman and I always hoped he'd reprise the role of Alan B'Stard.

It's a sad week.

But you know what?  Fuck that.  In the entire history of Blackadder, his contribution probably didn't even add up to ten minutes - but he stole them.

So let's watch him in his finest ever role...

Kobi and the Producer

The meeting with Kobi and his Producer was interesting, today.  We took the promotion concept into an entirely different direction.  Kobi warned the producer that I had some strong ideas of my own, and I think he said I might be difficult to steer in alternative directions, but I've been flexible from the very start.  It's the message that's important - not the way it's delivered.

So when the Producer (I've forgotten his name) came up with his suggestions, I was initially sceptical, but quickly persuaded.  At first I didn't really get the logistics of it, but the more it was clarified, the more enthusiastic I became.  This is a much, much better idea.

As I understand it - and I might have some of the specifics slightly wrong - we're going to get some still photographs, rather than video.  The pictures are going to tell the story of the last few years.  Massage therapist, car crash, autism diagnosis - leading up to me running the hen night business.  They'll be printed up and put into a display; ideally in an empty building that's been temporarily "reclaimed".  Apparently Edinburgh City Council has some sort of initiative or programme or something to support this kind of thing.

There will be an event.  People will be invited and I'll be there to tell my story, too.  I'll give a talk about everything.  It'll be an opportunity to prove that I can do the public speaking that I really want to get into.

After a while, I remembered the old Forest Cafe.  The original building that's just off Bristo Square.  There was a time I wanted to set it up as a business premises and run things from there.  A cafe or coffee shop downstairs and the art classes upstairs.  One business could promote the other.  Even if I got a partner; someone who would run everything downstairs, while I had dominion upstairs.  I could set it up as a gallery to showcase my own pictures and I could rent it out for yoga classes and various other events.  I had some grand ideas until I did some checking and discovered that the annual rent for the building was a full zero bigger than the highest realistic figure I had anticipated.

So, now I'm lusting after the Forest Cafe.  I really hope they can get it.  It would be an amazing place to hold that event, even if I never set foot in it again, after that.

Vettriano sleaze

I'm hesitant to put this down to autism, because that kind of feels like I'll be making excuses for my own behaviour. Like announcing that I'm not fully responsible, because I have "a condition". So I thought about writing it up in one of my other blogs, rather than the autism one.  But in the end, I figured that there were enough elements of this experience that had elements of autism about them.  Not entirely in my actions, but probably in my responses - the feelings of disquiet and self-reproach I've been experiencing all day, today.

And I'm hoping that writing about the events will help me come to some conclusions.  It can definitely be argued that that's an autistic approach.  In fact, at various times throughout the afternoon, I've found myself mentally dictating some parts of the posting.

So... this weekend, I invited two CouchSurfers (I'm going to call them S and L - their initials - until they give me permission to use their actual names) to stay with me.  They were in town and were looking for a last-minute place to stay and they sounded pretty cool.  In fact they were pretty cool and I liked them straight away.  And they had no hang-ups about nudity at all, so I was able to completely relax without fear of offending either of them.

We had some vague plans of going to Cramond Island.  A week ago, I tried to create a photographic project that involved putting up a tent on a nude beach.  As in... I was naked and I set the camera up on a timer to take a picture every thirty seconds.  The resulting project would have been a time-lapse kind of thing and if it hadn't been windy, I think it would have gone pretty well.  But it was windy and the tent very quickly was doing a creditable impression of the world's greatest kite.  I persevered for a good while, but eventually had to give up.  Anyone interested in seeing the results of that disaster can view the video here.

So the plan was to return to the project and try again on Cramond Island.  Except the weather yesterday was terrible.  Very heavy rain.  Thunder, lightning, the whole lot.  I was still tempted for a while to go there, anyway - just without the tent.  I've wanted to get some nudes in the rain for a long time, now.  But in the end, I gave up on it.

Ultimately I went one way and the girls went another way.  I ended up in town with another guest - a third girl - and we took some video together, as well.  I used an app on the iPhone to create an 8mm camera feel, and took a lot of video of the rain.

It was late at night, before the two girls returned to the flat and we reunited.  And they were leaving just a couple of hours later, so I was a bit disappointed that I didn't have more of a chance to hang out with them, but we at least had time for a couple of beers before they left.  The lack of sleep was catching up with S and she started dozing.  That was cool, though, because I was really starting to find some common ground with L.  We spoke about artists we like and about taboos and the common perception of sexual obscenity.  I don't like the way that erections and masturbation are automatically considered to be obscene and not artistic.  That's a popular impression that I like to challenge, because I find it to be damaging.

She told me about an artist called Igon Schiele and she showed me some of his pictures.  I had pointed out that since I started keeping a video diary, I'd noticed that I had some slightly strange quirks in my body language - a distinct tendency to be very angular with my limbs.  I'd become slightly self-conscious of this as a result, but found it to be more amusing than worrying.  With the angular gestures and the conversation about masturbation and art, I had made her think about Igon Schiele and she pulled up some of his pictures to show me.

I wasn't an immediate fan of his work, but it was definitely dramatic - and one picture really did stand out.  It's got a really cool look going on and I can't help being drawn to it.  I'm going to read about him some more, and I suspect his artistic style will grow on me, after a while.

She also showed me an article about Elke Khrystufek - a more contemporary artist - who uses masturbation in her own work.  I find it very encouraging to know that there are already people who are doing things like this.  I like knowing that there are people - male or female - who will actively and aggressively challenge that taboo.

I showed her some of Jack Vettriano's pictures and told her that what I liked about them was the element of emotional disconnection and alienation that featured throughout them.  This, combined with the sexuality involved, makes them feel slightly sleazy at times.  I should stress that this is my interpretation of these pictures and probably - I don't know - not representative of anyone else's interpretation.

The conversation moved back and forth and touched a few times on my own pictures.  I showed her some of my work and we discussed whether they were artistic or erotic or pornographic and came to no real conclusions.  Not that I'm really interested in getting a definitive answer about that sort of thing; it's more interesting when there are people who will disagree.

And then we started posing for jokey pictures with each other.  This was fun.  I posed with S, while L took a picture and then posed with L.  When she looked at the picture, she said "Aww" and I misinterpreted the noise, thinking she was disappointed that it hadn't come out well.  This turned into a challenging kind of debate about whether the absence of a penis (her knee was raised and it obscured me) in the picture had somehow spoiled it.  I had thought she sounded disappointed and she thought my response to this meant that I was disappointed.  And so we moved on to take "a selfie with some cock in it".  It was all a bit of a lark, so was still a lot of fun at this point.

The next development was my setting up my own camera on a timer, so that it would take a bunch of pictures of the two of us on the couch together - both of us lying back, and facing each other from opposite ends with our legs entwined.  And this is the point where I started getting a lot more tactile - or "touchy-feely", if I want to be less forgiving with my terminology.

I had already noted that I'd started relaxing into being pretty tactile with her.  A couple of times, while we'd been looking at things on the Mac, I'd rested my hand on her knee, which isn't something I usually do.  In fact, back when I was working at the clinic in Glasgow, I used to joke that I was "least tactile massage therapist I knew".

(This was before any of us knew I had autism, though.  And after the diagnosis, when I started to learn more about the condition, I realised that I had never completely understood the rules of physical contact, so had cut myself off from it.  Rather than cause inadvertently offence by touching people inappropriately, I simply didn't touch at all.  Being a massage therapist was the perfect career option, because there were very clear rules and I completely understood them.)

So... I was definitely starting to touch L.  A lot.  And I realised that I was resting my hand on her knee in a way that probably wasn't merely casual.  In fact, it seemed like the kind of relaxed physical contact that I would have with a girlfriend.  And not just that, but I was leaning into her more, and I was probably being a bit invasive.  Maybe even proprietorial.  When I realised what I was doing, I apologised and moved back a bit.  But then, when we started taking pictures together, the physical contact had to become an element once more.

After that, my enthusiasm for the pictures overwhelmed my reservations and I almost immediately had my hands on her all over again.  We got a couple of great pictures at this point - where we're both drinking from bottles of Cobra and laughing at each other, but there's more than a few awkward looking ones, as well.  

The camera was on a timer, taking up to thirty pictures a time, and I didn't want all the pictures to be virtually identical, so I took her wrist and linked our fingers together.  Again, there's awkwardness and confusion at first, because I wasn't communicating myself very well at this point.  I was getting too caught up in imagining the next picture and the next look and the next pose, so was getting carried away.  And when we looked at those pictures, the first thing I noticed was how deeply I'd failed.  I'd tried to create something that looked intimate, but had instead created a sequence of images where I looked possessive and proprietorial.  I was holding her wrist in my hand and linking our fingers together.  I was trying to force a look that hadn't come about naturally.

Fair enough - we were posing for a camera, and so were largely pretending.  It's all pretty forgivable at this point.

We were rapidly running out of time, now.  The girls were going to be leaving in about fifteen minutes so they could be on time for their bus.  And I told them both that they were welcome to come back to my place and stay with me at any time.  I also told L that next time - with more time to relax into it - I'd love to take some nudes of her.  Specifically of her arm underneath her breasts.  I had been fascinated by the tattoos on her arm, so really wanted to feature them.

I hadn't intended that we might take such pictures straight away, but she went for it.  She stripped off her t-shirt and bra and lay back on the couch and I snapped off a few pictures.  I was loving it, by then, and I was really hoping these pictures would be good ones.  I really wanted to do them justice.  This was when we got my absolute favourite picture of the entire project - with her glaring at the camera and covering herself up with one arm.  The expression on her face is hard to read, and I find it easy to imagine that there's contempt and loathing in there.  But with a slight change of perspective, I can also imagine something soft and vulnerable.  I can even imagine it to be a seductive expression, but I'm probably grasping a bit for that interpretation.

And then I took it further.  I asked S to take the camera and take some pictures of L and I posing together.  I cuddled up with her on the couch, and S snapped off a few images.  Then I got L to move her arms out the way and I put my own arm across her breasts instead.  Then I went to kiss the side of her neck and that's when I really crossed the line.

She said "No kissing!" and moved away.  I apologised and said "OK, no kissing."  S got another couple of pictures and then L got up, got dressed again and the two girls finished getting ready to leave.  I looked over the pictures we'd taken and started seeing subtleties in L's facial expressions and body language that I hadn't really noticed - or had ignored - leading up to that point.  There's a sneaking fear that I might have pushed her a long way past her comfort levels even before I went to kiss her neck.  That might have just been the final straw.

But the really interesting element is just how cool those pictures look.  There's a very strong emotional element coming off them that reminds me of the interpretation I have of those Jack Vettriano pictures.  Emotional disconnection and alienation, combining to create an element of sleaze.  These are - essentially - pictures of a naked middle-aged man and a half-naked girl nearly twenty years younger.  I definitely look predatory and sleazy, and she definitely looks angry and contemptuous.  There's an edgy sort of punk vibe going on, too - and that personality comes entirely from her.  There's no denying that these are great pictures.  They've got the same kind of personality that I perceive every time I look at a Jack Vettriano picture.

I have a couple of undoubted favourites.  The one where I'm about to kiss her neck and then the one where she's pulling away from me and I'm looking both confused and guilty.  And earlier in the shoot there's one with an entirely different personality, where it looks like we're both laughing at the same joke - or probably just at the absurdity of the situation.

As cool as the pictures are, though, they've definitely left me with a feeling of disquiet.  The combination of that punk vibe and that middle-aged sleaze definitely don't put me in a particularly positive light and that's left me quietly questioning my actions throughout the day.  The difference between seeing sleaze in these photographs - as opposed to a Vettriano picture - is the fact that it's me who's responsible for the creepiness.

Ultimately we all parted on good terms, so I'm hopeful that she's still cool with everything and happy for me to use the pictures.  And I definitely hope she comes back, at some point and we work on some more.  Because, despite all my concerns, I'm still very hopeful that it was just a misstep.  If we work together again, with more time and more communication, we might find that we relax into the project more successfully and create some really cool pictures.  The potential is definitely there.  I just have to show some restraint and not let the momentum and my own enthusiasm ruin everything.



Update:

The day after I wrote this posting, I got a really nice email from L.  She told me she was completely happy for me to use the pictures we had taken and she said I didn't make her uncomfortable at all.  I had been hoping that my own paranoia and self-doubts had been colouring my perceptions the following day, and her email confirmed that for me.

What seems likely, in hindsight, is that we had both created some great pictures with a very strong and very dysfunctional chemistry.  Strong enough that when I looked at them again later, I was convinced and worried by the personalities we had created.

I've posted some of the pictures on my RedBubble profile, if anyone wants to take a look.  Or maybe even buy some of them.

Afterword:

There's a scene in The tunnel, where Clemence Poesy's character (Elise Wassermann) says something very insensitive just as Stephen Dillane's character (Karl Roebuck) is about to answer his mobile phone.  He pauses, then gives her a look of complete disbelief and disapproval.  It's a hilarious moment... I genuinely laughed out loud at it.  And I'm not always a laugh out loud kind of person, so I treasure these moments.  But what's even better is the moment where she looks at him and recognises her own faux pas.  Perhaps she doesn't know what it is she's done, but she does recognise that she's done something.

The tunnel is a remake of Bron/Broen - a Danish/Swedish drama about the police departments of two countries having to work together to solve a conspiracy.  In each version, the female cop is autistic.  She's a great cop, but is strongly lacking in any real social skills.

The thing that I loved about that scene is primarily Karl's reaction to Elise's statement, but - secondarily - it's that moment where she recognises that she's made a mistake, too late to do anything about it.  It's probably the worst thing about being autistic and still having comparatively good social skills.  We don't always know when we're about to screw up, but we definitely know it just seconds afterward when we spot the responses of those about us.  And then we replay those last few moments in our heads and something just curls up and dies.

Conflict resolution

I went to Greenock on Saturday evening.  The plan was to have a few drinks with my cousin, see his kids and generally have a bit of a laugh.

The kids were going to spend the night at their granddad's place, so after seeing them again, we were going to have complete peace.  I was even going to be able to sleep in one of their beds, rather than on the sitting room couch for once.  It was shaping up to be a great night.

And it was great, at first.  Joe, Pauline and I had a laugh, had a few drinks, insulted each other, played a couple of games, watched some TV - all the usual stuff.

And then, at around 2AM, it was just me and Joe.  And that's where it all went wrong.

We got talking about autism.  I can't remember how the subject came about - I think I'd started telling him about the upcoming venture with Kobi from Fixers.  But then, he cut me off and told me that I didn't have autism.  He wouldn't even concede that it was a matter of personal belief or anything like that.  As far as he was concerned, it wasn't an opinion, but a statement of fact.  He had decided that I just don't have the condition, that it was all just a cop-out and that was it.

Actually, "cop-out" was clearly a key term, because he used it three times in the resulting conversation, although I never could figure out what I was supposed to be copping out from.

It went downhill pretty rapidly, at that point.  I was stunned and then defensive and then angry.  I tried describing some of the elements of the condition, but every time I did, he just shrugged and dismissed it.

I spoke about the classically autistic meltdown moments - which are thankfully rare in my case - that happen when I get pressed into a confrontational situation that I can't escape from or resolve.  They're slow-burning situations, where tension is gradually rising and every attempt to defuse it is brushed aside by whoever it is that has me cornered until finally all rational attempts to escape have failed and all that's left is completely irrational.  Rage takes over, I start pounding at my temples with the flats of my hands and then I break something and run away.  I was embarrassed to tell him about these moments, because they feel childish and volatile and ridiculous.  It's only in the last couple of years that I've actually able to acknowledge the fact that I can literally hit myself in rage.  Genuinely, literally, hit myself in the head - violently and repeatedly - so hard that it gives me a headache that can last for ages.  This, I feel, is not the response of a person who has a sane grip on reality during those moments.

He shrugged again, and said "I do that all the time."

Then he started comparing me to the son of a friend of his.  The son "squawks and tweets" all the time, apparently, and that has become Joe's definition of autism.  I don't do that, so I clearly don't have the condition - it's that simple.  I tried to point out that there were lots of features of the condition, but by that point he wasn't even letting me finish any of my sentences or arguments.  He just interrupted and said "you haven't got autism."

I was already very pissed off, by this stage.  But it was his attitude at that point - calm, condescending and smug - that got me angry enough that I had to leave.  By this point, all I needed to do was step outside and walk about for a bit to calm down.  But as soon as I took up my jacket, he grabbed hold of it and told me that he wasn't going to let me leave until I calmed down.

That's not the way to get me to calm down and in fact, it only started to escalate from there.  To be clear, though - the meltdown moment I just described still wasn't exactly imminent.  I wasn't feeling cornered, yet.  If I genuinely hadn't been able to leave, and if I'd genuinely had to deal with this particular conversation - with those condescending one-line put-downs of everything I said in my defence - then it might have happened eventually.  But first there there would have been a lot more warning signs, a clear display of increasing frustration and finally, there would have been a very sudden and very rapid meltdown.

I really wanted to leave, though.  The situation had already become very stressful and I didn't want to be there, any more.  So the fact that he now had a grip on my jacket and was - literally - refusing to let me have it, was narrowing my options down even further.  I paused just for a moment, and he took that opportunity to take hold of it in both hands and I could see that he wasn't messing about.  His knuckles were white.  Before I could take it, I was going to have to prise his hands free and that was going to turn into a fight.  Or some sort of childish scuffle.

I'm running out of ways to describe how every fresh development was actually getting me more outraged all the time, and at this point I genuinely considered punching him right in the face - and that shocked me more than anything else.  I've got no idea how bad a move that would have been.  I know that when we were kids, Joe was always able to come out on top in every single fight we ever had, and I don't know if that's changed, but I don't really want to find out.  So the final option left was just to abandon the jacket and leave without it.

3AM in Greenock is not a good time to find yourself outside in just a t-shirt.

I was halfway along the street, when I heard Joe at the front door calling at me to come back.  I got to the end of the street and sat down on a wall, to calm down.  He called my mobile a few times, texted me a few times and then, after about half an hour, he sent a final text telling me that he'd leave the front door unlocked.  I gave it another hour or so, then got up and walked back to his place.  In my paranoia, I hesitated outside his front door for a few minutes to convince myself that he was definitely not still awake and waiting for me to come back, so we could start the conversation again.

Finally, I went inside and crept into the sitting room.  My jacket was lying on the couch, so I picked it up and put it on, then stepped outside again and left.  I didn't know what to do about the front door, and was concerned about it being unlocked, so I hung around a bit more, but eventually I started walking into town.

I was completely worn out.  From the moment I started wandering the streets of Greenock, it wasn't the argument that was particularly fresh in my mind.  It wasn't the rage or the frustration.  It was a sort of bone-deep exhaustion and all I wanted was to be at home and in my bed.  But I still had to wait four hours for the buses to start running and even then, I knew, the journey home was going to at last at least another three hours.  Despite all that, though, going back to Joe's was never going to be an option I would consider.  Not for one minute.

I haven't heard from Joe since then.

Thoughts on the Fixers video

Hello, Kobi

I spent a large part of last week thinking about the tone of the video and have a few thoughts.  I thought I'd share some notes with you, to see if you broadly agree on the approach I've been thinking of.  Some of these thoughts are my own, but I really like the suggestions you made last Monday.

I was also thinking of the type of endorsement that would really be cool.  I have absolutely no idea how practical this is, but I suddenly thought of Pamela Stephenson.  She definitely bridges the gap between media celebrity and mental health professional.  I know that autism is a neuro-developmental issue, rather than a mental health one, but it can have mental health consequences, so I believe she would be a great person to provide an endorsement.

Anyway, these are my thoughts -

Scenario - Could be anywhere.  In my home, or in a studio, or anywhere.  Talking to camera.  Cut between close-ups of my face and some further back angles.  Not rapid cuts, though - those can be distracting.  Just something to make it all a bit less static.  Perhaps intercut with bits of cartoon animation or stop-motion animation (Kobi's suggestion) to create a visual display of some events.  Makes everything less solemn and more cheerful.  I really don't want to dwell too much on the darker aspects.

Interview type setting?  Someone asks questions, so I'm talking to a person rather than a camera.  Feels more natural.

Describe how I first suspected I had autism.  How I read about it and felt a real sense of vindication, when I realised that a lot of the things that had defined me and created challenges for me had been related to the condition.  Describe the very inaccurate statements that gave me doubts -

"Autistic people have no sense of empathy."

"Autistic people have no sense of humour."

Describe first doctor's attitude, when I approached him for a diagnosis.  His own preconceptions were completely inaccurate and as a result of his misunderstanding of the condition, he simply belittled and dismissed me.

Describe car accident.  Leading to consequences that were initially very negative.

Loss of job and career

Loss of flat

Loss of property

Describe how I dealt with a massive increase in spare time.  Too many hours with nothing to do, leads to discovery of Photoshop and digital editing.

Describe the impact of my loss of professional career.  Transitory sense of worthlessness.  How that led to me turning back to something I had done when I was younger - I returned to life modelling for something to do while I figured out my next step.  Got my own business as a result.

Describe how PTSD made me approach a therapist (Paula Bell) who recommended I be referred to a specialist (Doctor Wheeldon of Ballenden House) who gave me my diagnosis.

Overview - 2009 started out as an absolute bitch of a year, but ended on a high note, with a fresh perspective, a new creative outlet and a new direction to move in.

Talk about Number 6.  Their role in my understanding of autism.  Leading to my looking for support in developing my business, but encountered dead ends.  Talk about how most autistic people are unemployed.  Talk about how the condition is misunderstood.  Talk about how autistic people should be heard.  How they could have valuable contributions to society, if they had support.

I'm very aware that they could do with being tidied up a bit, but this is just a rough, early draft.  And I'm also aware that it might be a lot of information to impart in the very short time we have for the video.  I hope it helps, though.

See you tomorrow.

Graham

Reward of all my efforts, my own limited company

It's amazing to me that I got into this business.  The hen night life modelling.  On Monday, Kobi told me that he particularly liked the way I'd rebuilt my own life after the car accident.  Everything had come crashing down and I'd fixed it myself.  He also appreciated the fact that I'm volunteering at Crew 2000.  I've been helping to promote a cause that I believed in.

It's tempting to think that way.  To flatter myself and run with the self-promotion.  But there was a lot more to it than that.  If I hadn't moved back in with my parents and had them take care of the immediate problems - food, shelter and basic survival - I would have kept sinking.  If I hadn't had help from the Cyrenians, I wouldn't have found my flat.  If I hadn't had help from Number 6, I wouldn't have had something to occupy my time and would have still been pretty ignorant about the realities of autism, or would have been stumbling around from one misleading website to another.

And if my mum hadn't loaned me the subscription fee to the RAM website, I wouldn't have started working as a life model.  Which means I wouldn't have proven myself to be capable of sourcing venues, running classes, ordering sketchpads, recruiting staff and a couple of other little details.  So I wouldn't have been offered the business.

I could go either way on that one.  I had definitely demonstrated capabilities, but there wasn't exactly any competition this far north.  I was the only person around.

I've never understood quite where the fine line is between being arrogant and smug about my achievements if I give myself too much credit, or demonstrating a low self-image if I don't give myself enough.  Personally, I think my self-image is pretty good, but I do still like to acknowledge other things that have contributed towards my successes.  This is particularly apt, considering the Scottish school system back in the '70s and '80s were full of teachers who were only too keen to "take you down a peg or two" if they thought you were being too complacent.  And they had a pretty relaxed definition of terms like "complacency" or "arrogance" or any term at all that implied that we students were even remotely pleased with our achievements.  So, some of us learned to demonstrate humility, before we had it thrust upon us.

Anyway, it definitely helps to emphasise that I was in the right place at the right time, so sometimes there's just no substitute for sheer, dumb luck.  Especially since - much more literally - earlier that same year I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  And that car crash, as usual, was the catalyst that led to this position.

So, I found myself in a tough situation, I went back to basics, found an interesting variation on an old theme, ran with that for a while, was offered a good break, grabbed it and started to move on.  A lot of that definitely is down to my own efforts and innovations.  But those efforts would have been useless if I hadn't ever been given the opportunity to use them.

First meeting with Kobi

I've finally got a meeting arranged with Kobi.  I'm going to see him at BeanScene coffee shop on Monday afternoon.  This could be good.  Seems there might be more resources available than I first anticipated, depending on the target audience.  Very professional glossy booklets - things like that.  Posters in bus shelters.  I'm not sure either of those will be offered to me, but I'll definitely accept anything that sounds realistic.  This could be amazing.

He's talking about maybe suggesting I can give talks to medical professionals.  I'm not entirely sure about that, because I don't know what I can tell them that they don't already know.  But it's a possibility.

More than anything, I want to be promoted somehow.  The autism primarily, since that's got the message and the authenticity.  But that can segue into high autistic unemployment rates and my own business venture - making me a potential success story.  So, with luck, promoting the business could easily be a secondary element to the promotion.