I’m using the “lapcom” to write this today, so I clearly remembered to bring it back to the house with me yesterday.  It’s definitely better overall for typing upon than the smartphone is.

I wish it had backlit keys; you don’t see that very often on mini-lapcoms, unfortunately, and it does mean that the smartphone has an advantage over this computer in truly dark conditions, since its entire working surface is lit.   With the lapcom, only the screen is lit, which makes it slightly harder to see the keys, since the eyes adjust to the light level from the screen.  Still, I don’t really need to see the keyboard to be able to type; I’ve been doing it for a really long time.

By the way, in case anyone is curious and in case I think I haven’t explained it before—I think I might have, but I’m far from certain—it may seem odd that I say things like “bring it back to the house with me” instead of, for instance, “bring it back home with me”.  The reason is that I don’t consider the place where I live to be home.

I certainly don’t consider the previous place I lived to be home, nor the one before that.  In fact, ever since I’ve stopped living in any dwelling where my kids ever stayed, I consider myself homeless.  For a certain amount of that time, I was literally homeless.  I survived (obviously) but there have been quite a few unpleasant years since I last saw my children regularly; it’s been about 13 years since I’ve seen or spoken with my son.  I guess I really am difficult to endure.

I don’t try to be, of course.  Honestly, I don’t, especially not for the people I love.  You could even say that I try not to be difficult.  But I guess I am atypical to enough of a degree that I’m hard to endure for too long at a stretch.  According to my autism evaluation, I have ASD level 2, which means I have “moderate support needs” (as opposed to level 1, minimal support needs, and level 3, significant support needs).  So I’m not just “entry level” but pretty advanced, as it were.

My evaluator gave me the level 2 assessment because though I have a full-time job, it is clear that I am not thriving nor keeping up with many typical requirements of living (there’s more to it than just that, but that’s a summation).  I guess that probably means that sooner or later, my ad hoc, slipshod edifice will crumble.  But this is no surprise to me.  I’ve been crumbling for a long time.

I’m one of those houses built on sand, so to speak, without a foundation, and so it is fundamentally unstable and prone to breakage.  I don’t really have the wherewithal to repair it myself, though.  I’ve never been very good at taking care of myself.  I can take care of other people quite well, or at least I can take care of other people in certain ways.  But I’m not very good for me.

This poor self-care is not something I can correct with just an attitude or perspective adjustment; believe me, I’ve tried for decades in a great number of ways.  It appears just to be part of how my mind works.

So, don’t be surprised if, at some point, I just completely fall apart and implode or explode and am gone.  I know that I don’t have it in me to save myself; if I did, I would have done so long ago.  I’m smart and capable and have many abilities, but I do not have much of a capacity to bring them to bear on practical matters—or, well, on certain kinds of practical matters.  There are some such things I’m quite good at, but other important things have no hold in my mind.

I’m not sure what to do about all this.  Maybe I should start playing the Powerball™ or whatever it is.  I have never done so other than on occasion in the distant past as part of a group purchase of a ticket or some such.  I’ve always known that the math is such that there is essentially zero chance of any person winning the lottery, at least the big ones.

I used to tell my patients, if you’re in the store anyway, and you’ve got a couple of bucks that you might otherwise spent on candy or chips, then sure, go ahead, play the lottery.  It’s a bit of fun, and supposedly the proceeds or profits go to educational purposes (I have my doubts, but never mind).  But I always said to them that they should never take a special trip driving to the store to get a lottery ticket, because they were more likely to die in a car crash on the trip to get their ticket than they were to win.

Of course, if dying is a kind of winning for you, that may not be too much of a disincentive.  Anyway, I don’t have a vehicle of any kind, so I’m unlikely to get in a car crash on such a trip; I’m more likely to twist my ankle.

I’m sorry, I know there’s been no real reason or rhyme to this blog post.  I’m just allowing randomly firing neurons to express themselves.  I don’t know for sure if this is even intelligible to anyone but me (though I would give high credence that it is, based on past experience and as objective an assessment of my writing as I can make).  Thanks for reading, in any case.  I hope you have a good day.