Blog re-named.

As you can see from the header above, I have formally re-launched this blog as "Aspie Aggie Librarian", since my discussion of the intersection of my Asperger's syndrome and my flagging library career will be the shifting focus of this blog until further notice.


I've always been what you could characterize as the "absent-minded professor" type of person. I also recently attended a conference featuring Temple Grandin and Sean Barron on Autism & Asperger's, aimed primarily at teachers but also with good general information. I learned that I fit into a specific sub-group of Aspergians who are versatile with languages/translations/words but have a corresponding deficit in having exceedingly poor drawing skills (that is very true, I can speak to that from personal experience) and we are "so-so" at math. Also, true dat.

Also, like Temple Grandin (though perhaps not as strongly), I was always definitely better at Geometry rather than Algebra, which was always my mathematical Achilles' heel. Trig and even parts of Calculus I understood, but my lack of facility with Algebra always weighed me down like a dead albatross.

Another deep personal regret? I was always good at Chemistry. In fact I aced High School Chemistry, but I lacked the courage to take Chemistry once I got to Texas A&M. I allowed myself to get "psyched out" and didn't take it, and that was a mistake, as I probably not only would have enjoyed it, I might have done very well...and, call me crazy, maybe even made it one of my majors. A double major in Chemistry and German would've given me a far more rewarding career path than my actual degree in History and German.

Also, in some ways, I was not Aspergian ENOUGH in some respects, especially when it came to History or German Studies...If I had been able to fixate on a select narrow topic in either field and really burrow into it, study it from all angles, etc, I might have found a rewarding career in academia. I probably couldn't teach worth a damn, but I would've potentially been a better researcher. While I do have some of that peculiar Aspie focus and obsessiveness, I also have a lot of diverse interests and can get quickly bored with a topic and want to move onto the next thing that tickles my fancy. I tend to like to study a lot of things only slightly deeper than a superficial level but no one thing in any particular depth, which isn't a formula for success in the Academic world.

I remember painfully how Rice University seemed able to manage to suck all the joy and life out of a subject I thought I loved, namely German Studies. My first semester back in Grad School at UNT, I spent a lot of free time ignoring my library coursework and doing personal research on German Studies pedagogy in Higher Ed and finding researchers who agreed with me about all my pet theories about what Rice U. was doing wrong during my period of study there and how German Studies ought properly be done in these United States (hint: by not trying to reproduce verbatim the standard Germanistik curriculum of German-speaking Europe--it does not work and only leads to frustration on the part of North American students).

I did shit like this all the time, by the way; Back at Rice U, I grew disillusioned with the actual canonical curriculum and instead developed a strange passion for all things Slavic Studies...especially Czech literature but also Polish lit/film, etc. Devoted days upon days I did not have to researching these things and blowing off my actual responsibilities because they bored me.

All of it, for better or works, makes so much more sense in the light of my Asperger's diagnosis...Hell, the very year I began as a newly minted German Studies graduate student, 1994, was the very year Asperger's syndrome was formally adopted into the DSM-IV as a distinct diagnosis...that it was recognized as a milder form of Autism.

And let me tell you, in 1994, back in Houston all alone and away from my social network supports I'd built up over my 5 years at Texas A&M, I felt like a fish out of water and utterly awkward as hell. My behavior was eccentric and Aspergian in the extreme...especially my multiple failed attempts at relationships with women during this time frame...comedically bad flops and gaffes in hindsight, all of which can be laid at Asperger's door. Stuff that would be regarded as textbook Aspergian missteps today...but there was no Asperger's textbook in the mid-1990s, so all I could call myself was an "introvert" and I was stumbling around in the dark trying to understand what I was doing wrong, etc.

I had also been awkward and a bit of a social outcast among the American ex-pat community during my study abroad year in Tübingen, Germany...something I only now understand may have been partly the fault of my (undiagnosed) Asperger's syndrome...that and regional differences, the TUFTS students being stuck up assholes who looked down their noses at someone from a mere state school in the American South, and a former A&M college at that.

I've always had a hard time "fitting in", but treasured the rare occasions where I did manage to, somehow...always few and far between. I relish the times I was able to have deep, meaningful conversations with interesting people who also took me and my ideas seriously as well. I abused alcohol as a means to suppress the anxiety caused by my inherent social awkwardness and overcome my inherent shyness and introversion. Alcohol and other drug abuse is definitely a risk factor for anyone on the Autism spectrum, probably more so than for the average NT.

Since I was too erratic and mood-dependent in my study habits and self-discipline to be a stable, reliable Academic, I hoped Librarianship would serve as a back-door into getting employed at the University level, but it only worked for painfully brief spans of time...fun while it lasted but alas....now I'm a public sector employee and while it's not bad, it does still feel like a waste of my true talents and abilities and knowledge base...

I had the idea for this post driving home from work today but delayed logging on to long and drew a blank at first, but I think in the course of composing this blog post I have covered all the major points I had wanted to raise earlier...at least jot them down *someplace*, and here is as good a place as any, I figure.

I've been meeting with other Asperger's people in my local area. We're trying to put together a podcast but we're still just learning and experimenting, nothing quite ready for "prime time" yet. I just enjoy their company, and I enjoy our open discussion forum on Facebook, where we can help each other overcome problems, issues, and challenges.

I wish there was a League of Autistic Library Workers or other focus-group or advocacy organization or something...there have to be others of us out there and I'm sure they face similar challenges and difficulties in the library workplace. If we could only connect and stand together somehow...carve out a niche for ourselves within ALA...maybe start an SRRT roundtable devoted to OUR issues, etc. That's where I'd envision things going in the future, with any hope.

Until then, keep struggling, my brothers and sisters.