Whining (you can skip this one)

My friend Mike is hiking the Appalachian Trail as I type this. He's blind. Think for a second about how hard that would be - blind hiking. Now, if you'd only known him from phone calls, you wouldn't know he can't see and you might say something like, "I wish I could take eight months off from work so I could do that." Mike has the time because he can't find work (the unemployment rate for the blind is over 70%). My cousin Mark is blind; he was the second blind graduate of the Harvard Law School (they made a film about the first one), so I grew up thinking that being blind wasn't much of a handicap... as president of the national Federation for the Blind, Mark's forever fighting over small discriminations the blind face that one generally wouldn't think about; American currency will soon be encoded with Braille, thanks in part to him. That doesn't mean Mike's going to be earning money soon, but he'll know how little he's carrying with him.

Mike's website: http://www.blindhiker.com/

I'm supposed to be at the Autism Society tonight, but I don't think I'll go, even though it probably would be good for me. I'm having a rough time.



It's hard to explain what it's like to have ASD (autistic spectrum disorder; it's the favored term of the year), but I can say I often think I'd rather be blind. People recognize that the blind are blind (well, Marla Runyon sometimes gets "But you're not really blind.") They make some accomodations for them. High-functioning autism is a constant struggle with no rewards at all.

I completely misread a situation recently and I'm completely mortified. I won't say exactly what happened - and, given how much I'm willing to admit publicly, you can imagine what I won't admit - but today I hate being who I am. I'll be okay soon, but not today. I'm taking the day off to wallow in self-pity. I just need the one day to whine about how bad life sucks sometimes.

Training's going okay. The next post will be back to training. Promise.