Is the "F*ck Trudeau" Movement Completely Ignorant, or Am I Missing Something?

While I don't like Justin Trudeau (or, Sockboy, as I like to call him), and have never voted for him, I'd really like one of the Caucasian "F*ck Trudeau" people to explain exactly what they think he's done to them, in their actual day-to-day life (I understand why Indigenous people are pissed at him, however). I mean, it wasn't the federal government issuing mask and vaccine mandates, for the most part - it was our provincial governments...you know, the ones almost exclusively run by Conservative party leaders? They control all health regulations for all employment fields and businesses that aren't federally controlled (there are very few of those, by the way...just inter-provincial trucking, airlines, and banking, really, outside of the military and RCMP).

I'm not saying people have nothing to complain about, but I do think they're diluting their own issues by ranting about things that have nothing to do with Trudeau. If they really want specific changes, they should be communicating that...with the appropriate governmental authorities, rather than blaming someone who has little control over provincial actions.

Ostensibly, the issues were mask and vaccine mandates. However:

"Up to and including August 19, 2022, a total of 370 reports with an outcome of death were reported following vaccination. Although these deaths occurred after being vaccinated with a COVID-19 vaccine, they are not necessarily related to the vaccine."

Source: https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/vaccine-safety/

That's 370 people from a total of nearly 60 million doses given, and not all of those deaths were likely to have been caused by vaccines. (I could only find two deaths in Canada, specifically triggered by the AstraZeneca vaccine, but I'm likely missing some of the reporting on that.) Nearly 45,000 people have died from the virus in Canada, though that number is widely believed to be underreported. I prefer my quadruple-vaxxed odds, personally.

For those who believe there's a microchip in them, one only needs to take a look at the size of the needle they have to use to microchip a pet (12-gauge for the older chips, and 15-gauge for the newer, much smaller ones - source: https://www.microchipidsystems.com/faq-items/develop-mini-chip-for-pets/). The chips themselves can be felt under the skin of the animal, even though they're smaller than a grain of rice.

Vaccine needles are super small - only 22- to 25-gauge, according to the CDC. They simply do not have the carrying capacity for microchips.

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/admin/downloads/vaccine-administration-needle-length.pdf

Chipping is done subcutaneously, which is just under the skin. COVID vaccines are an intramuscular injection, which means you're basically stabbed with it. Two completely different methods. Additionally, most people carry around cell phones that can be remotely activated unless you can pull the battery - which most cell phones no longer allow you to do, since they prefer you buy a new device rather than replace the battery. If the government chose to be that heinous, they would be far better off listening to your conversations than merely getting your location information from a tracking device (which your phone also does).

People seem to spend their entire lives being pissed off at the wrong leaders (or just for the wrong reasons), because they have no real understanding how government functions in Canada, and also seem to have no understanding of the actual definition of dictatorships or communism, much less the difference between communism and socialism (there's a big difference, I promise you).

Most of the people who complain about Alberta having to pay a lot of money have no idea how deeply in debt Alberta was at one time (a large number of the people who hate Trudeau hail from Alberta). During the Great Depression they defaulted on their debts, and it's the only province to have ever done so. It was the Social Credit party in charge at the time, who got into power on a platform of religious fundamentalism and radical monetary theory. Religious fanaticism does not make anyone wise, and certainly not in the realm of financial matters - particularly if they base financial decisions on religious beliefs. The general problem with the Alberta economy is a total lack of diversification. Apparently they've never heard the phrase, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket." They're still making the same mistake. Oil is dead - it just hasn't learned to lie down yet.

While I hate to spoil the trucker pity-party, very few people who went to the rally in Ottawa were employed as truckers. 90% of truckers were already vaxxed when the rally took place, and it was led by people who weren't even involved in the industry. The vast majority of truckers cannot afford to take even a single day off that isn't required by normal trucking regs. They have far bigger concerns than being afraid of needles, and the rally distracted from those real concerns. Particularly when the hate flags started flying (Nazi and slavery symbolism, in addition to the Trudeau flags). Trying to argue your point of view doesn't fly when the hate flags are flying. More informed people turn deaf.

Sadly, I've seen "Every Child Matters" flags alongside "F*uck Trudeau" flags, and they were at the rally, too, where the other hate flags were flying. Those Trudeau flags weren't really seen anywhere until that rally. Considering the history of slavery in Canada, where Indigenous people were enslaved alongside Black people, I find that a little shocking. I'm not sure why anyone who cares about Indigenous rights would be flying the Trudeau flag, since most people associate the flag with hate groups. I do understand their anger toward Trudeau, but from a PR perspective, they would be far better served creating a different flag without the negative connections and connotations. Something that carries a real message, perhaps.

It seems most Canadians need to retake a history class (there are many free university courses online) on the things that have happened in Canada over more than just the last five years - looking for the root causes of the things they're seeing today, instead of just the present situation. [I'm talking about Caucasian people here, since many Indigenous people are all too well aware of their history, and the actions of the Canadian government.]

Economic policy takes about ten years to come to fruition in the real world, so the majority of what Trudeau has been dealing with, economically, throughout his three terms has been fallout from Harper's smoke and mirrors budget that sold off most of Canada's assets at a fraction of their value, and a global pandemic that's broken most other countries' economies, whilst we retain an A+ credit rating. The first year Trudeau was in office, Ft. Mac had their big fire, and Canada had zero money in the pot for emergencies. None. It was all gone. I speak as a former accountant and investment analyst, so I do know exactly what I'm talking about. I looked at the budget from Harper very carefully (what little he allowed the public to see, since he was never transparent). The fact that Trudeau's government has been able to provide any sort of support for Canadians during COVID is almost miraculous. As for why I, personally, don't like Trudeau, I looked at his voting record before he ever got into office - something most people never bother to do. He was an MP and was happy to vote in favour of things like Bill C-51, introduced by Harper, which restricted many of our rights and freedoms in Canada - particularly the right to privacy, so if you want to complain about privacy violations, that would be where to start. He was supposed to amend it, but never did - not a surprise when he voted for it. He never fulfilled his promise to get rid of first-past-the-post voting, and it's no longer even on his radar - his government created a convoluted survey no one knew how to answer, so they could cherry-pick the result they liked, which supposedly gave them the justification to go back on their promise.

I'm disgusted he never shows up for Indigenous rights. He also voted for Keystone XL, and bought the newly-defunct Transmountain pipeline expansion, paying far more than it was worth, considering it wasn't yet a functioning pipeline (and likely never will be now - the first one is still going, but leaks on the regular). His claims of being environmentally friendly are a joke, as are his claims of being friendly to Indigenous people. Many of them wanted him to remove the Haida tattoo he sports, because it's like a slap in the face.

While I instinctively agree with the anger at his many trips using up a lot of jet fuel, when he could just as easily use secure forms of video calling, I also realize there are other factors at play on the global stage - sometimes it's a lot easier to talk in person (which I despise, but am forced to acknowledge) and get things done, and there's now the added security risk of Russia being a lot more determined to listen in on our political meetings with other nations. China (with their 'unlimited friendship' with Russia) also makes all of our tech. All of it. It's truly stupid, and I've been yelling about it for years, but there isn't a nation in the world (that I'm aware of) that uses their own proprietary chips or motherboards, even in their most secure facilities.

The US is finally getting a clue there, and they'll eventually be making their own, but otherwise every single comms device we have was made by a Chinese company. Every cell phone, every computer, you name it. And that includes all the 'smart' devices in people's homes. They've already been caught adding miniscule spying chips to everyday tech. Motherboards, CPUs (despite major production largely being shifted to Taiwan, China still has power over Taiwan), GPUs, etc., are nearly all made in China. Think about it. CSIS and C-SEC computer systems were all made by Chinese companies. That's our internal and national security. The only thing Canada has done is require the removal of Huawei tech from our 5G network. The big telcoms are in the process of doing so now. That's just one company that was literally caught stealing technology from Canada (they bankrupted Nortel, a major Canadian employer).

There's one big hiccup with regard to removing Chinese tech, however. Stephen Harper signed a deal with China right before he left office, that forbade Canada from infringing on China doing business within the country, and allowed China to resolve any disputes outside of Canada's court system. It was one of his many backroom deals Canadians were not informed about until it was too late, and most Canadians still aren't aware the contract exists.

Sadly, leaders like Pierre Poilievre are cut from the same cloth as Stephen Harper, and they're happy to brag about it. There were good reasons Erin O'Toole didn't bring Harper in to vouch for him during the last federal election - he's hated by most Canadians. Instead, O'Toole decided Brian Mulroney was a better option, despite him being ousted for taking literal bags of cash from lobbyists and getting ousted from his role as Prime Minister. In other words, a crook was less hated than Harper. Harper had more scandals than any other PM in Canadian history. Thus far, Trudeau has had seven scandals whilst in office, though not all have been directly related to him, and there was one in particular that wasn't actually a scandal (Elbowgate - there's plenty of video showing what did, and didn't, happen). Harper had more, and they were of a particularly serious variety, such as election fraud (the Robocall scandal being just one of them).

Any scandal is bad, frankly, so I feel little interest in supporting anyone who ends up in the middle of them. In Trudeau's case, his multiple brown-face scandals are enough for me to conclude he's unsuited to lead a country full of people of varying ethnicities. It showed him as the overly-entitled child he seems to be to this day. He shows little understanding of the needs of anyone who couldn't afford private school. Even the recent 'help' for people to buy a home has an age limit, when there are plenty of people in Canada who have never been able to afford to buy a home - age has little to do with being priced out of the market. Far too many adults are still earning minimum wage, and fifteen dollars an hour (depending on the province) is nowhere near enough to buy a home, when the median price is (as of this writing) just shy of $700K.

I hate finding myself in the same camp as those who can't iterate their reasoning with regard to their anger and disgust toward Trudeau, however. I'm definitely angry with, and disgusted by, him, but I'm also not interested in associating with what amounts to a hate group in my mind. I find myself increasingly frustrated with the lack of awareness shown by a majority of Canadians, including those in power. Problems that could be solved with just a few moments of forethought and empathy are being swept under the rug as if they don't matter. Question Period in Parliament looks like squabbling children, rather than serious politicians trying to get work done for the people who hired them. The fact they're visibly enjoying the byplay makes it worse. It's not funny. People in Canada are dying of exposure and starvation, whilst our government employees are chuckling and having a good time getting nothing done for them.

That's where the anger needs to go, frankly. It's happening in every legislative system in Canada; from Queen's Park in Ontario, to the Alberta Legislature, to our federal Parliament. Canadians are human beings, and we deserve a hell of a lot better than we're getting from our staff. One thing Trudeau should note, however, is that when people disengage from politics, it's usually not the Conservatives who do so.

The Return of 'Bad Jack' the 7-String - And the Rise of the Custom Build

As a metal and rock guitarist, I have two seven-string guitars - a super-cheap Jackson, and a slightly less-cheap Ibanez. Neither of them are studio-quality, but I've at least been beating the hell out of them the last two plus years. I practice a lot, hoping to get good enough one day to play my own music.

Jackson JS22-7 DKA HT Dinky Archtop

The Jackson is made in China, and, as one would expect, has really cheap parts. I eventually had to replace the output jack with something that didn't behave like an acrobat, bending in every direction and causing annoying grounding issues. It was my first soldering job, and it's honestly a miracle it worked as well as it did, since my daughter had oxidized the tip on the iron without me realizing it. I barely got things joined, but somehow I've had no issues with the jack since then. It got its moniker, 'Bad Jack', due to the brand name and the output jack being faulty. I still think of it as Bad Jack, despite the fix.

Ibanez RGMS7

The Ibanez (I call it Ben in my head) was made in Indonesia, but it was below the $1,000 US threshold that generally indicates a competent guitar. It took longer to start experiencing issues, but eventually it got to the point where it was impossible to record or take any more guitar lessons. Now it's worse.

I should point out here, frustration is my enemy. I don't tolerate it well, and I end up having meltdowns - I'm autistic, so I've learned I have to walk away when I start getting that frustrated. The frustration made it impossible to even practice at times, so I finally gave in and decided to get the guitars repaired. We took in the Jackson first, since we figured the Ibanez was still quasi-playable and we wanted to keep a 'working' instrument.

We took the Jackson to Cithara Guitars here in Hamilton, Ontario, and we were well aware they were swamped and couldn't get to the Jackson until the new year, but we had assured them it wasn't an issue. Until it was, of course.

That fantasy died a couple of weeks ago...along with the electronics in the Ibanez. It started putting out a thin, almost clean sound for a few minutes, until it failed utterly and completely, refusing to peep and squeal any further. I thought something had gone wrong in the amp sim on my computer. After rebooting multiple times and checking for updates, I went through the rest of the signal chain. I eventually plugged in an old six-string, which worked appropriately, in the very out-of-tune way one expects of a guitar that hasn't been played in years (at substantial risk of old strings snapping and cutting me, so I proceeded with caution).

The six-string isn't a playable instrument, which means I haven't had anything I could use for practice. Most of my songs were written on a seven-string and require those extra notes. I'm trying to rehearse for studio recording, so it's been a little crazy-making for me. While I started out not using an amp at all, I now need the auditory feedback (not actual feedback) to know if I've got the feel of something. If I can't hear how it sounds through an amp, I'm not sure if my muting technique is correct, or even my pitch in many cases. I don't want to practice something the wrong way, in other words, because breaking a habit is a pain in the butt...and fingers, hands, wrists, elbows, shoulders, and back. Playing rock or metal guitar is a very physical thing. One just has to watch Angus Young, shirtless and dripping sweat on stage to get the idea.

With all that, you can be forgiven for assuming I was excited to get the e-mail from Cithara that the Jackson was ready for pickup. Because, your assumption would be correct. My husband has it in hand, and I am awaiting its return as I write this. He's now dropped off the Ibanez, as well, and it's just a matter of time before we have two working instruments once again.

This is important, because it's pretty tough to rehearse with someone whilst sharing a guitar. Yes, I know Walk Off The Earth can do a lot with one acoustic. We're not them. My husband normally plays the Jackson now, since he had to learn to use a seven-string if he wanted to play my music. For now we'll share it. We do have a five-string bass, so one of us can play that in the meantime and get more of our bass lines written.

Our recent issues have highlighted the need to have better instruments. However, as a female guitarist with a fairly large chest, I have a big problem with standard guitar shapes. (Nita Strauss might not understand the need, and jokes about it, but she's not particularly large up front.) They may be designed to look like a woman's body, but they sure as hell don't fit one for playing - especially not lead, where the angle of the guitar changes drastically. There's only one guitar on the market that was designed by a woman, for a woman's body (the St. Vincent model). Cheers to Ernie Ball for doing more than any other guitar manufacturer in the world, but the problem is, it's a six-string. They don't make a seven. I guess they don't think women play metal. But, for their effort, at least, they deserve something. My husband loves their guitars, so he'll likely end up with a John Petrucci model at some point.

Ironically, it was Fender that stumbled onto the fact nearly half the guitarists are women these days. They did a survey a few years ago and got the shock of their lives, apparently. They haven't actually done anything about it beyond giving a few women 'signature' models that look the same as every other guitar in their very small lineup of shapes. Not having a woman design them from scratch is a huge lapse in judgment on their part, and they're still missing out on almost half the market. And Fender, while 'classic', is boring. They never seem to do anything different. Teles, Strats, and the odd squashed versions they do of their own designs. Not very imaginative.

I'm not going near Gibson with a ten-foot pole. Their litigious tendency, and poor design choices top the list of reasons, but the fact you can't keep the damn things in tune is really the biggie for me. They have a lot of nerve charging thousands of dollars for a guitar you can't properly use. When it comes to metal, you're also digging in a lot more, which causes almost any guitar to have tuning issues. So, why make it worse for myself?

This is the reason I've never gone with a vibrato bar (Leo Fender named it a tremolo, and the term stuck, but it's not accurate - he made the opposite mistake on an amp, calling the tremolo knob a vibrato). Even the best vibrato system has tuning stability issues. If one string breaks, the rest usually go wildly out of tune. It happens on a regular bridge, too, but it's not as severe. It's why we have to go through the tuning sequence a couple of times to get things as lined up as possible, and there's a particular way you have to tune vibratro. It's actually not possible to have a guitar in perfect pitch, but we do what we can.

So, after years of frustration with horrid designs, we decided it was time for me to build my own. At one time I would have literally done the building part myself, but I was one of the 'lucky' ones who got early-onset arthritis. My work with hand tools is at a minimum these days. I'll destroy my body to play a guitar, but I'll have to get someone else to build it for me.

The repairs at Cithara are a sort of test, though their reviews are really good. They won't be able to start making it until summer, giving me plenty of time to sort out the details, but I've got most of the stats and components figured out. I'll be doing a video about it on my YouTube channel at some point, but that will be skewed toward the guitar nerd audience. None of the components will make any sense to non-guitarists.

This new guitar is already in the process of being named. Yes, it's a thing. I'm not sure if all guitarists do this, but it does make it easier to tell someone which guitar to hand you if you have multiple models of the same brand. I believe Keith Richards and Todd Rundgren both name their guitars. I don't really follow either guitarist, but I did watch interviews about their gear.

My brain has decided this guitar is female, not male like the other two. She's either going to be called RainStorm or Nemesis. I like both, so it's a toss-up at this point. Nemesis is the goddess of Justice and Retribution, and I've sort of identified with her for as long as I've known of the mythology. It's appropriate the guitar is likely going to be made by a company with a Greek gods theme going on. A cithara is an ancient type of lyre, but they've named at least five of their models after gods. They have yet to use the name Nemesis, so I will be mentioning it to them. Frankly, I want a trademark on the body shape, so I have to figure all that out.

There are two or three companies that make something fairly close to what I'm planning, but one of them charges ~$8,250 US for the model I like, and the others are fully custom shops that charge exorbitant prices. While my own build will be over $4,000, it's still something we consider reasonable for what we're asking from our luthier. The build quality is important, obviously, but some of the parts are also expensive and some require extra router work.

Basically, I'm getting rid of everything in the guitar that bothers me on a regular basis, and tailoring the shape for playability both sitting and standing. Every component will be extremely high quality, and a lot of parts will be Canadian-made. I could get custom pickups wound in Canada, but I already knew I liked the sound of a certain kind of active pickup that happens to be rechargeable, so I didn't want to go with something else that required a disposable 9V battery. Lithium Ion is already bad enough for the environment.

I expect this to be something of a journey, and I'm hoping to include the whole experience in video form on my guitar channel. I've waited this long for a proper guitar, so I'll have to be patient a little while longer. Or try to be, anyway.

Life in the RV World, Part 2: Procrastination Screws Up Our Winterizing in a Good Way

We're in the middle of our third cold snap since winter began. We've had above-seasonal temperatures for most of the winter, but clearly the cold wants to sneak in there somewhere, climate change or not. This means winterizing, even with a four-season trailer that includes the Arctic package.

If you know me, then you know I procrastinate. Constantly. It can save me a lot of work, to be frank, because doing things early often means hearing, "I've changed my mind and no longer need this." At least, that's how it works in the corporate world. I always hit my deadlines when I worked those jobs, but usually waited until the last minute. I don't think I consciously knew that would happen, or that I procrastinated for that specific reason, but it did sink in somewhere in my hardheaded brain.

Of course, I've always procrastinated. Even as a child with school assignments. It gave me plenty of time to think about a project. I could figure out the best way to do something, and (potentially) it added a lot of value to my work. I constantly came up with new ideas, because the project was sitting in the back of my granite-like skull, awaiting execution.

Winterizing our trailer has been one example of this, even though it's also led to some issues for us. Those problems have shown me what I really need to focus on, however. Let me elucidate my strange reasoning.

The one thing I did right from the start was to winterize our exterior, potable water line. I added a strip of aluminum tape, and then used more aluminum tape to attach a heat trace (also called heat tape) down the length of it. The aluminum tape supposedly disperses the heat from the heat trace over a wider strip of the hose, which may or may not be helpful. I'm not entirely sure, but I wasn't taking chances with our water line. Then I added foil-covered bubble-wrap insulation. I covered the entire hose with it, and secured it with reusable zip-ties. Not only is it insulated, but it also has a thermostatically-controlled heat source. When the temperatures drop below 3C (37.4F), which is just above the freezing point (depending on your elevation), the heat trace turns on to keep the line warm(ish).

I still did this at the last minute, because we moved into the trailer right before it got cold and it took us a while to gather the necessary items. It was the night before we were going to hit a cold spell, though, when I finally got it done and installed it.

I did not insulate the post coming from the ground. It froze before I got to it, but I was planning to get it done. I eventually did that and even made a hood for it, which has since blown away in the wind because the rope wasn't fastened (I forgot to tell my husband the rope was there, and he just stuck the hood over the post without securing it). Now I have to make a new one, but I've run out of the bubble-wrap insulation. We bought a giant roll, but used most of it to make skirting - more on that in a minute.

As a make-do project, my husband used aluminum tape to press the heat trace against the brass y-connector that kept freezing, and then he wrapped scrap bubble-wrap insulation around that. Thus far it's been working, and we haven't had our water line freeze since he did it.

I chose to wrap our giant (120-pound rental) propane tank with the bubble-wrap insulation, just in case we had a really cold winter. Propane can turn into gelatin if it's exposed to extreme cold, and it won't fire once it does. The last thing we need is our heat source not working. According to one of the gentlemen who fills our tank, that's what he has to do in the Yukon Territories when he goes winter camping there. We don't get quite that cold in southern Ontario (not even close, actually), but it's possible we'll get an ice storm or some other freak-of-nature occurrence. We weren't sure what this winter was going to look like, and it was an easy thing to do.

The tank was delivered with a cap already on it. The valve is covered, as is the wireless sensor that tells them when it's time to come fill the tank. Of course, that failed and told them our tank had plenty in it. We ran out and they had to deliver more, but we told them it could wait until the next day, because we have three spare tanks. Two came with the rig, but they're only 20-pound tanks. We bought a 30-pound tank we were also refilling until we were able to get the big tank delivered. Now we keep them full just in case. It's a good thing we do.

I considered wrapping the pigtail hose for our propane, as well, but propane doesn't tend to remain in place in the hose when it's cold, so it doesn't have very much exposure before it's pushed through for use. So far it's been working. If it stops, we'll know the reason and we can fix the problem.

To make sure we're never without water, even if there's a freeze-up, we keep quite a few 4-litre jugs of tap water on hand for washing up, or to flush the toilet for solid waste. We also buy spring water in large jugs for drinking, coffee, and for the ferrets (we have three, and we hate giving them tap water).

We bought almost all the stuff we need to skirt the entire trailer, but I ran out of the snaps I intend to use to attach it. I misinterpreted the quantity information and didn't realized they were talking about pieces, not sets (there are four pieces to a single snap), and now we have to order more.

I used the 4-foot-wide bubble-wrap and cut it to lengths corresponding with each section of the trailer. Otherwise it would have been a hundred feet long and a pain in the butt to handle (our trailer is 33 feet long and about 8.5 feet wide, with a hitch/tongue extension). Some of the segments are already long enough to be annoying. Then I used a cheap landscaping fabric and spray glue to cover one side of each piece - I wanted it to match our trailer a little better and not be so reflective.

At some point I installed snaps on each piece and also smashed the back pieces together to ready them for attaching to the trailer itself. Those will be epoxied on, rather than screwed in where they would create holes that might be problematic (RVers hate putting holes in their hulls - it's a thing). The problem I've been trying to figure out has been how to keep the snaps in place while the epoxy putty cures, while still making sure they're placed in exactly the right spots. Measuring might work for some, but for me I don't trust how accurate I am there. It takes five minutes for the JB Weld putty to set, and another 24 hours for it to cure. I'm not sure what other brands are like.

The solution, which we will likely implement one day soon, is to use hook-and-loop strips. We buy it by the roll already, because it's awesome for putting up paintings and other things, rather than sticking holes into something. I haven't had good experiences with 3M adhesives, but my husband bought Command hooks the other day that seem to be staying up in our shower now. I might give their products more of a look for interior stuff, but it's unlikely I'll trust them for the exterior where windy weather is more of a factor.

We also bought a vent cover for our bathroom vent, but haven't put that on either. We don't get a lot of snow in the Hamilton, Ontario area, so we've always been able to open it if we needed to. I still want to put it on to keep out rain when it's warmer and we're opening windows and such again. Neither of us are keen on being on the roof, eleven feet off the ground, so we've put it off. We have two other vents, but we had a lot of other expenses at the time and only bought the one cover. We'll likely get the other two later, and maybe they'll all get installed at the same time.

The benefit to having procrastinated with the vent covers, however, is that I realized quite recently that I want to put insulation in them. We don't want light coming through them, for one thing, so we're going to have bubble-wrap insulation inside them to keep the sun from glaring in and heating us up during summer months, as well as keeping our own heat in during the winter. I'm not sure why they aren't sold as insulated units already. The insulation won't cover the air slits on the side, just the bubble on top. Hopefully they won't increase our roof height beyond the air conditioner already sitting up there.

Many RVers insulate their shower skylight, too, which we will likely do in the summer to limit heat exposure. Our bathroom is already too warm because we keep the door closed (ferret-proofing), and there's a heating vent blowing into a very small room. It's really nice when one of us is cold for whatever reason, because we can heat up almost instantly. It's also nice to have the extra heat when you're wet from a shower.

The benefit to procrastinating with the skirt is that it's allowed me to figure out how to do it properly, in addition to showing us what parts of the trailer really need it. We know the rear of the trailer is quite exposed in our current space, which means the lines to and from the water heater are exposed (we've lost our hot water when these lines have frozen, but it was extremely temporary). That's also the end with our kitchen's grey tank, and the gate valve froze for a couple of days so we couldn't empty the tank. In other words, we have to cover our ass in this trailer...as in life.

The non-door side of the trailer (where all the utility stuff is dealt with) doesn't need to be covered at all, since we're back-to-back almost with another trailer, and we aren't getting heavy winds from that side at all. The other two gate valves are located near the furnace exhaust (carbon monoxide, so you have to be careful) and we haven't had any problems with them so far.

I was originally trying to figure out how I could get the skirting to cover the utility area, because we would still need access to the valve handles to empty our tanks, but it looks like we won't have to cover that section at all. This means I have a nice, long piece of insulation I can use for other purposes. If we park in a different location, with different exposure, next winter, we can always buy another roll of it to make another piece. As it stands, I prefer to use it on interior windows.

Speaking of windows, that was something else I did to keep things a little warmer in the trailer. Our bedroom windows and vent are all covered inside with bubble-wrap insulation, using hook-and-loop fasteners so they can be quickly removed. One of the windows is our emergency escape, so we can't block it off in a way that's problematic to remove. Interestingly enough, since I stuck the fasteners to the screen on the emergency escape window, it actually pulls off the whole screen if I just grab the insulation to take it off. That makes it easier to remove the screen, now, than it was by pulling the tab they installed on it.

Only the stuff covering the roof vent is visible, since our windows all have blackout blinds on them. Strangely, the bedroom windows did not have the side pieces of the valences to prevent people from seeing in around the blinds. Yet the living room windows do have them. How that makes sense, I'll never know. The bedroom is where you want the most privacy, one would think. But, I'll get into the foibles of this trailer in another post.

I also covered our door window. It was the first window I covered, actually, because we were getting too much heat through it when the sun was beating on it, and I didn't appreciate the sun blasting through it to pierce my eyeballs with its strange pain while I was trying to sleep.

At the cold end of the trailer is also where my desk is situated. It's built-in (and the only model that had this feature, it seems), so I can't move it somewhere else, and with my arthritis the cold drafts I was getting were pretty hard on me for pain. I insulated the window over my desk, and also the wall in the knee well. It's done a fantastic job of keeping me warm while I work.

The only other window I've insulated so far is the one behind our theatre seating. We're there every night to watch news and educational (research for my novels) programming together, and my husband sits there with his laptop while he's working on stock reports, so I wanted to make sure we were warm there.

The roof vent in the kitchen was insulated, too. I've left the bathroom vent in case we need it, but in the kitchen we already have the range hood, which vents out the side of the trailer. We don't need a second vent for that kind of thing. It's mostly good for air flow in the spring and fall.

As someone who grew up in northern Ontario, I know what a cold winter looks like, and this doesn't feel anything like I remember. Today's conditions are nothing like what we dealt with in Muskoka back then. In fact, even in Muskoka they no longer deal with anything close to what we had when I was a kid and young adult. In my mid-twenties I remember we had a cold snap in Huntsville that was particularly nasty. The temperature itself was already -50C/-58F. We had wind chills down to -70C/-94F, according to weather reports on the radio at the time. (Much to my surprise, however, my car started that blustery winter day, and the block heater wasn't even plugged in.)

All-in-all, I think we're probably set for the rest of the winter, even if we never put the skirt on. The fact my husband generally walks around in his boxers is a good sign, and I'm often barefoot (neither pregnant, nor in the kitchen, thanks). A day or two of freezing isn't going to be a problem for us, and it's good to know that. In fact, having the challenges I talked about in Part 1 has not only brought us closer together as a couple, but they've also increased our mutual confidence in our ability to look after ourselves in adverse conditions. The next step is going to be off-grid upgrades - something I'll tell you all about in a future post - and I cannot wait. Incinerator toilet and solar power here we come! Now, if only we could find a decent mobile internet provider. Yet another future post...

Life in the RV World, Part 1: Poop Pyramids, Poopsies, and Poopsicles

Our New Home

It's been four months since we started *camping in our travel trailer. We've had a couple of cold snaps, and a few things have frozen, but it hasn't been a bad experience for us. In fact, we've rather enjoyed the challenges from those problem.

One of our first problems was a clogged black tank, which is the tank holding the waste from a toilet. This is not a fun prospect, but it's far easier to fix than one might imagine. You see, we accidentally left our valve open. We knew we weren't supposed to, but one of us forgot to close it. It was probably me, since I was doing the majority of the tank maintenance at the time. It's usually my husband who forgets this kind of thing, but I've got ADHD, too, so he's not the only one who has trouble with distractions.

We ended up with a 'poop pyramid'. In other words, all the fluid drained from the tank, leaving only solids behind. They form a pyramid shape right below the toilet (you can see it when you flush the toilet) which can then clog the main line. This is not a good thing, but we do have a flush inlet for an outside hose to be used. This helped. However, I don't think it did a good enough job getting rid of the clog, because we ended up with it clogging at the internal valve. We bought a flushing elbow that allowed us to use backflow pressure to break it up, which worked really well to remove the clog. (You MUST keep the toilet flush valve closed when doing this, or risk sewage spraying into your face when it suddenly clears.)

We also got an auger and sprayer wand for cleaning the inside of the tank - something we'll do in spring and fall when it's warmer, because we have to run an outside hose into the bathroom through an open door or window. Keeping the inside clean means the sensors, which tell you how full your tank is, will work a lot better. Toilet paper and other solids can cover the sensors, preventing you from getting an accurate reading. Many RVers complain their sensors don't work. This is why. You can buy external sensors that might work better, but I personally think it's better to keep the tanks clean. That prevents other problems from occurring.

As we were working on the clog, however, the sewer line popped off and spilled sewage onto the ground. This is affectionately known as a 'poopsie' in the RV world. I immediately closed the gate valve, so the damage was minimal. (I always watch when I first open the valves to make sure we don't have a problem, because that first rush of materials has a bit of force behind it, and this time the force must have been pretty high with the extra water rushing through it to remove the clog.) After some research, and also checking with the RV park where we're staying, we sprinkled garden lime over it to deal with the problem. It neutralizes it, apparently. Cold temperatures help avoid any smells, too.

Funnily enough, our 'neighbour' tried to tell us immediately after that we should leave our valves open all the time. Um, no. Don't. Very bad. Especially in winter. If your sewer line freezes you won't be able to drain your other tanks, either. All three of our lines come out in one line. A sewer freeze-up means we can't shower or wash dishes once our grey tanks fill. Our owner's manual tells us to only have one open at a time. If they made a mistake with that, they pay for the damages. If we go a different way and it's a mistake, we have to pay those damages. However, we already have experience that tells us the manual is correct. Expert advice says the same. 'Some yahoo next door' isn't an expert.

Then we had a problem with the elbow, because we got rain that froze the gate valve shut (it has an extra valve). We ended up with a bit of a 'poopsicle' (frozen poop inside the drainage line) by the time my husband decided the solution was to pour hot water over it to thaw the valve. This worked very well, and did not cause anything else to freeze later since he did it carefully. We removed that elbow to prevent future problems, and will only attach it when we need it.

We haven't skirted the trailer yet, which literally means putting a skirt around the entire base of the trailer to prevent cold drafts around our pipes, etc. I finally figured out the easiest way to do it, so we'll likely do that tonight or tomorrow, but I'll explain our winterizing steps in detail in another post.

Not skirting the trailer, however, caused us to have a frozen gate valve on our rear grey tank (called a 'gray tank' on our panel because it was built in the US - why am I so annoyed by that spelling irregularity?) for two or three days until the weather warmed up a little. Thankfully that's our kitchen tank, so it just meant my husband couldn't do dishes for a bit (he does them because my sensory issues make me gag if I stick my hands in dishwater, and then I later freak out from my hands getting dry...and I'm disabled, so standing for long periods is a problem). I suggested using the shower to do them, since a sink isn't really required. Plus it would allow him to sit down while doing them. A small bathroom means the toilet is right there.

Our furnace heats the internal plumbing in the underbelly of our trailer, but it wasn't quite enough to handle the cold snap we just had, so unless we skirt the trailer we're going to continue having this problem. And we're about to have another cold snap, so we need to get it done. Our floor will be a lot warmer to walk on, too.

Another issue we had during the two cold snaps was our hot water line freezing. That may sound like it doesn't make sense, so I should explain the reason. Our water heater is also at the rear of the trailer, which is the most exposed to the cold and wind right now. The line going into the water hater isn't heated, of course, and the water coming from it eventually gets cold if we're not using hot water. One of those lines froze, not the water heater itself.

The very first problem we had was a brief period where the water line itself froze. I had already winterized our hose, which I'll discuss in detail in the winterizing post, but I hadn't wrapped the park's line yet. The pipe from the ground was still exposed. I had intended to insulate it, but hadn't made it that far. Additionally, I hadn't flipped the breaker for the 110V power, so our heat trace wasn't working either. I'm not sure which was the bigger problem, but it melted pretty quick and I got everything running properly. Well, my husband noticed the breaker not being on, which made me feel pretty stupid, but then I'm usually the one fixing those sorts of problems so I probably shouldn't feel too bad. Thankfully, he's not the type to humiliate me for mistakes.

We've had the main line briefly freeze (from the park) since then, but that was because the hood on the post blew off and was lying on the ground...instead of insulating like it should do. There was supposed to be a rope holding it on, but my husband didn't know it was there (because I didn't explain it to him, since I wasn't expecting him to do the work outside).

An issue or two per month, I suppose, as we adjust to winter camping and all its quirks. Not bad for our first go-round. We're not only learning, but we're also somewhat slow at getting things done. I'm heavily medicated for my arthritis, so I have stretches where I can't concentrate or I simply feel incapable of doing anything. I also have bouts where my pain flares up beyond my medications' ability to handle it. Those days usually involve me lying in the fetal position, rather than getting anything done.

My husband, while somewhat handy, isn't as knowledgeable about RVs, mechanics, electrical, etc. I've been using power tools since I was a child, and went camping every summer for two months in an over-the-cab camper (a slide-in camper for truck beds that has a bed area over the cab of the truck). Winter is a new thing, but I've done a lot of research. I spent weeks before we moved into the trailer, learning everything I could about how things work and all the maintenance we have to do.

We're slacking, though. I still haven't gone up on the roof from sheer terror. Same with my husband. We both happily admit we're chickens. It's more than eleven feet off the ground, and it's a rounded roof. I want to install a fall-protection system. That kind of fall is a very bad day, and possibly deadly. I've already had a skydiving accident (from trying to face my fear of heights) and have no interest in falling from a height again. We have a vent cover we have to install over our bathroom vent, since we feel that one in particular needs to be something we can open. A lot of snow will prevent that unless we install the cover.

Another issue for me, of course, is my schedule. I sleep during the day, because I can't sleep at night. (It's childhood-onset delayed sleep phase disorder and can't be fixed by light therapy.) Meaning, it's usually dark in the winter by the time I'm ready to get anything done. I'll either have to stay awake for a day to do it, or I'll have to wait until spring. Decisions, decisions...

*I have to call it 'camping' because it's illegal to live in RVs in our province. We have to have a fixed address, and Ontario law does not allow anyone to live (even on their own property) in an RV. We have to go to designated campgrounds and also have a 'bricks & sticks' address in order to retain our residency. Residency is required if we want to keep our healthcare and driver's licenses. Not to mention the insurance on the trailer, which is required for our loan on it.

Ethics Vs. Expediency - Boeing's Moral Bankruptcy and the Lack of Consequences

Cheating culture has become normalized in society. So has lying. People seem to think it's the easy way out of every problem, and it has become an accepted part of how people go about doing their business. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in corporations who are supposed to provide a good or service. Many companies start out with good service and good intentions, but when they get bigger they're either bought by a company with no ethical standards, or they become a company with no ethical standards.

I could list multiple examples of heinous behaviour from corporate entities, who simply do not care how much their actions hurt people. They're too large to give a damn about one angry customer, or even a hundred. The only time anything changes is when there's a class action lawsuit against them, but generally they settle so they don't have to fix anything. They pay a nominal fee to make the nuisance go away, and don't bother to change a single thing they do if there's no court order to do so.

Take Boeing, for example. They killed 346 people. They are responsible for their murders because they lied to regulators about the software in the 737 Max 8 jet. They deliberately misled FAA regulators so their plane would pass inspections and be cleared to fly. Two planes went down, killing hundreds. Imagine the horror of the pilots when the computer took control of the plane, forcing the nose down, and there was nothing the pilots could do to avert the tragedy. They were killed by a computer glitch that was hidden by Boeing. They knew there was a problem, so they lied. And many people died.

Yet, not a single person went to jail. Hundreds murdered, no jail sentences. The company settled.

Now those planes are back in the air, and I don't care how 'rigorous' their testing was; I will never fly on any Boeing plane again. None of them can be trusted with my safety, and I would not give Boeing the financial recompense. There were no consequences for the people who lied and killed hundreds of customers. The company paid money in a settlement, but the people who lied weren't punished whatsoever. This is a major legal and ethical failure - not just on the part of the Boeing executives who chose to lie to the FAA, but also on the part of every government that's still allowing Boeing any air space. Boeing should have been permanently barred from creating passenger planes after proving they could not be trusted with the safety of human beings. Alternatively, they could sacrifice everyone who had a hand in making such a heinous decision, by allowing them to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

How, exactly, are we to trust any company that lies so egregiously that they don't care about risking human lives? It's not the plane that's the issue now...it's the ethics of the executives involved. They will literally allow people to die if it gets their plane cleared to fly. And what happens when they do it again? Since there were no consequences this time round, what kind of deterrent is in place to keep them from repeating their actions? Even if the people responsible were let go, there's no criminal record to keep them from being hired somewhere else, and they will be just as morally bankrupt there as they were at Boeing.

The thing is, this is NOT normal. This is not how our laws are set up, and it is not how our country was intended to run (I speak of Canada, specifically, but it applies to any nation with consumer protection laws). Citizens are supposed to be protected from corporate malfeasance and perfidy. When they steal from us, corporations are supposed to be held accountable. When they lie and people die, they're supposed to be held accountable. Paying a settlement, from what amounts to petty cash for an airline manufacturer, is not accountability. Jail terms, prison sentences...those are accountability. If you kill people through intentional actions, you should be going to jail. Manslaughter charges would have been fully appropriate for every person who chose to remain silent regarding the software on the Max 8.

Instead, the US government got a settlement. Has Canada received any of that money? What about the two other countries the planes took off from, and all the countries people lived in before they were negligently murdered? Only $500M goes to a trust for family members of the victims. And who, exactly, thinks a settlement replaces family members who have been killed?

I didn't know anyone who died on either of those planes, but I'm horrified that this has become the normal way of doing business for every western nation. Zero accountability. The company is blaming two of their expert pilots, and they eventually ousted their CEO, but that does not fix the problem, does it? People lied and people died, yet, somehow, no one is being punished for that. This isn't a society. It's a corporate free-for-all.

As House Transportation Committee Member DeFazio (D-Ore) said, it's a 'slap on the wrist' for Boeing, adding in a statement, "I hope the DOJ can explain its rationale for this weak settlement to the families, because from where I sit this attempt to change corporate behaviour is pathetic and will do little to deter criminal behaviour going forward." The explanation is simple. It's called lobbying, also known as legalized bribery of public officials. Citizens United is not anything that helps actual citizens, and it's not about unity for citizens either - it's all about corporations being able to pay their way out of any situation (of their own making) that they find themselves embroiled in.

The Problem With Celebrity 'Expertise' on Social Media Platforms

A social media platform these days can be problematic. Not only because celebrities are somewhat forced to share their opinions on a variety of subjects they know little about, but because they inevitably give them, even if they have no idea what they’re talking about. For some reason, a large percentage of the public tends to believe whatever asinine thing they say, despite their complete lack of expertise. As an autistic, I’m particularly sensitive to this. In part, because neurodivergents are regularly attacked and endangered by these unproven statements, but it’s also in large part because my traits are such that I despise bad information and unfair practices. Fairness and justice are a big deal to me.

Lies and disinformation, even if unintentional, are harmful. The spreading of misinformation results in people dying. That may seem like an exaggeration to those who are privileged enough to never have been subjected to these situations, so I feel it is necessary to illustrate my point with some examples.

LGBTQ+ people have been subjected to hate and ‘street justice’ for their differences from the majority of society, for centuries. This prejudice increased with the actions of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) which labeled homosexuality a psychosis some time ago. In the mid-1900s a psychologist did a study which proves this was not the case. The APA refused to remove the label of psychosis until 1987. The World Health Organization (WHO) didn’t remove it until 1992.

Electroshock therapy was used until gay people vomited, and they were forced into going on dates with the opposite sex. In other words, they were tortured and told they didn’t know what they were, by people who couldn’t possibly have known such things without being psychic, and then they were forced to behave according to the conventions contemporary society wanted displayed.

Stonewall is just one result of that. The ~700,000 people who died of AIDS (in the US alone), is another result. The prejudice against gay people led the Reagan administration to ignore a major health crisis. It wasn’t until Reagan’s daughter came out as a lesbian (and Ronald Reagan became terminally ill) that Nancy Reagan changed her tune, but by then it was too late. They treated these people as if they deserved to die for their ‘life choices’. While Mike Pence was Governor of Indiana, his prejudice against LGBTQ+ people led to a large outbreak of AIDS, which was badly mismanaged.

Even if homosexuality were a psychosis, they would still have no choice in their actions, but people are blamed for their mental health challenges, no matter what they are. The prejudice against anyone with a psychosis has always been a problem. The word ‘psychosis’ is deemed to be synonymous with dangerous.

It took the APA until June 2019 to apologize for their actions against the LGBTQ+ community.

The same thing happened with transgender people. The APA labeled it a psychosis. Trans people have been subjected to cruelty and murder for their differences, just as LGBTQ+ have been. They cause no harm to anyone, and are far less likely to commit acts of violence than the population at large, but are subjected to violence on an ongoing basis. Searching for trans violence sources on the internet results in a plethora of studies on violence against them, rather than displayed violence. The reason for this is simple. They have been singled out by the APA, and the non-trans population was thereby given permission to single them out for abuse and discrimination. 22 trans people in the US were killed in 2019 alone. Nearly all of them were black transgender women, so racism is also likely a factor, but bigotry is still bigotry.

I won't even get into the JK Rowling debacle, for which she seems to have left Twitter.

It wasn’t until the APA released DSM-5 in 2013 that ‘transgender’ was officially removed as a psychosis and they were recognized as knowing who and what they are. Apparently their 2019 apology encompassed trans people as well. However, the damage was already done…once again.

This infantilizing and patronization of human beings by the APA has led to violence and murder. Repeatedly. Now they’re doing the same thing to autistics, and celebrities are lapping it up. William Shatner is only the latest in a long line of celebrities spreading misinformation about autism, and it pains me to admit one of the worst for spreading lies about autism is another Canadian; Jim Carrey, along with his former partner, Jenny McCarthy Wahlberg, has been spreading vaccine misinformation for a very long time, claiming the work of former physician Andrew Wakefield proved vaccines caused autism. Work for which he later lost his licence to practice, because he concealed his funding and manipulated the data to ‘prove’ his theory for his patrons. Anyone can buy a study, apparently, so one always has to look at the funding sources.

Many studies have been conducted since Wakefield’s shameful work, and they have all debunked his hypothesis. But the damage was done there, too. The anti-vaxxer movement was born and we suddenly started having measles outbreaks.

We also started seeing a lot more hate for autistics. We’ve been told autism is a disease and a disorder. We’re told constantly, by people we once admired, that we’re a drain on society and should be kept from view of the public. The premier of the province of Ontario, Doug Ford, is one such public figure. He’s claimed autistics bring violence into neighbourhoods, among other heinous statements.

When autistics who can speak actually speak out for autistics, we’re told we couldn’t possibly know what we’re talking about, and that we don’t know what’s in our own brains. We’re told we’re audacious because we speak for fellow autistics who are non-verbal, such as the latest tweets by Bill Shatner. ‘Yet another high-functioning autistic thinking they can speak for non-verbal autistics.’ (I’m slightly paraphrasing, as I’m not interested in promoting his account by grabbing the actual tweet. You can look it up on Twitter if you don’t believe me, however.)

My response? Yet another white, male, cisgender, ableist celebrity who’s arrogant enough to tell us who we are. This is a man who will never understand prejudice. He converted to Judaism, rather than being born into it, so he didn’t experience the anti-Semitism many Jews have experienced. None of Shatner’s co-stars from Star Trek seem to like him very much, though, so I guess I’m not alone in my disgust of him. In 1998, according to IMDb, James Doohan said, “I wish I could say that Bill is a nice man, but he isn’t.” He also said, “I like Captain Kirk, but I can't say that I'm very fond of Bill Shatner.” Shatner refused to appear on stage with George Takei at Doohan’s last convention, and while Leonard Nimoy sponsored Shatner’s conversion to Judaism, the friendship later soured to the point where Shatner did not attend Nimoy’s funeral, due to Shatner filming Nimoy without his permission and including the footage in a documentary about Star Trek captains. Nimoy had already refused to be in the production, and Shatner’s arrogance led him to ignore his friend’s refusal. Clearly, Shatner exhibits a behavioural pattern to suggest he believes his own wishes trump the personal rights of others. Even Walter Koenig has issues with him. If it weren’t for the fact he still has a huge platform, I wouldn’t bother with mentioning him, since no one seems to like him anyway. His verbalizations indicate we should maybe just remove the last three letters from his surname, because that’s the kind of thing that falls out of his mouth.

As an autistic, I can tell you far better than a neurotypical person how another autistic might be thinking. I can describe what goes on in my brain quite well, and I can fully relate to what other autistics are thinking and doing. I watch non-verbal kids as they play with light and shadow, and I remember the feeling of watching pretty lights and getting dazzled by them, soothed, lost in their beauty and magic in a way non-autistics will never understand. While I don’t spit or play with fluids, I have similar sensory behaviours. I touch fabrics that are particularly soft, and I stroke them repeatedly. I pet my ferrets. My feet move back and forth on my bed sheets, because it calms me and helps me sleep. And also because it just feels good. Not in any sexual way, but as a sensory experience. I’m very tactile, but extremely selective about it because of my sensory issues.

I watch parents struggle with their non-verbal autistic children, and I grow frustrated with the lack of information they’re getting. They really don’t know how to work with their kids, and there are some very simple things they could be trying (such as musical interaction and interacting in such a way as to understand the world their child is seeing). Instead they’re told to put their children into ABA, which is behavioural adjustment that results in nothing more than a temporary fix. It’s also well-known to autistics as a form of torture. They tried it on gay and trans people, too. It’s called conversion therapy.

There is no evidence to support the hypothesis that ABA works for anything more than the short-term, as the latest, admittedly less cruel, version of it has only been practiced for a short period of time. It instills a heavy load of guilt and shame no autistic should be carrying. We cannot change. We can only work with who we are. Dogs don’t become cats, gay people don’t become heterosexual, and autistics don’t become neurotypical. It used to be worse, with 40 hours a week of intensive 'therapy' to 'fix' autistics. We are not broken. We just are.

We can, however, learn to communicate through other means, such as music. One child learned to speak through the song "Old Town Road" by Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus. It baffles me why this method is semingly never used. Singing along to a song is by far a more fun way to learn to speak, and fun is the best way to get an autistic to cooperate. Many of us simply refuse to speak because we do not wish to, and frankly that's our right.

Autistics are regularly experimented on without our consent. It’s a violation of our human rights in both the US and Canada, and no one is doing anything about it. We autistics are terrified and traumatized by society’s reaction to us. And it doesn’t help that defense attorneys are attempting to use autism as a defense for mass murder. It’s happened in the US for mass shootings, and in Canada most recently with Alex Minassian, the man behind the van attack on a Toronto street. They’re trying to say his extreme autism means he doesn’t know right from wrong. He clearly does know the difference. He just doesn’t care. Sociopathy or psychopathy is the more likely explanation. It has nothing to do with autism, specifically, but rather a comorbidity that can potentially come with it. I have ADHD and OCD traits as comorbidities.

Psychologists telling people that autistics kill is going to get the rest of us killed. Celebrities telling autistics we don’t know our own minds isn’t helping anything. We’re being gaslit in every conceivable way.

The solution? Psychologists actually listening to autistics.

But that is not happening. We’re being labeled psychotic and dangerous, and it’s showing up in courtrooms, where precedents are set. We aren’t being asked who we are. We’re being told who we are. No one has the right to do that, but the ‘autism’ label has somehow made these people feel they have permission to dissect us in the most public and humiliating ways possible. We’re being talked down to by celebrities with platforms on social media who are under the mistaken belief they’re qualified to do so.

Many autistics are so intelligent they qualify for entrance into Mensa. Actors think they’re smarter and better educated.

When the APA decided to roll people with Asperger’s into the autism spectrum in their diagnostic manual, major problems started cropping up. They didn’t bother to ask autistics about their thoughts on the matter. They didn’t bother to ask anyone with Asperger’s. They simply decide to lump us together, uncaring about the damage they might do to all of us.

The public at large does not understand autism. The majority of people think it’s a single arc, with verbal and so-called ‘high-functioning’ autistics on one end, and non-verbal and ‘low-functioning’ autistics on the other. That isn’t how it works. There are many bands on that spectrum. Some of those bands include verbal skills, others include life skills. Some bands correlate to creative ability, etc. A non-verbal autistic can be a musical genius, whilst a verbal autistic can be terrible at life skills and social interaction.

Every autistic is unique, just like neurotypical people. Labels have turned us into a race of people who are then subjected to bigotry. Autistics don’t all look alike, just like people of colour do not look the same. Bigotry in any form is fear. People fear that which is different, until they understand it and realize it isn’t a threat. However, we have been labeled a threat. Now what? Are we going to be rounded up and put into concentration camps?

Parents who cannot handle their autistics children are looking for solutions, and institutionalization is one action they sometimes default to. It isn’t a solution. It’s a way to get away from the exhaustion they’re feeling. And it’s a way to make sure their child is looked after if they die. It doesn’t improve anything for the child, and in all likelihood makes it worse for them.

Parents want to ‘cure’ their child. But, it’s not a disease, and it’s a bloody insult to call it one. Autism is part of our entire genetic structure. It involves a thinner myelin sheath, which means we have less insulation on our nerves (an electrical system, so that may indicate the nature of the difficulties we face with communication just within our own brains) and tendons. We’re born with it, and the signs can begin to show very early if a parent is observant. There have been studies to indicate deficiency in DHA may be a trigger. DHA is a type of fat found in meat.

Pregnant women who are vegan may not be consuming enough DHA, and the first two years of a child’s life are important for consuming fat, as well. The brain requires it. Constant dieting has led us to a point where parents are not allowing their children to eat enough healthy fat. Doctors have recommended homogenized, full-fat milk for children under the age of two for decades now, because their brain requires it for proper development. When I had my own daughter more than thirty years ago, they were already recommending full-fat milk. I made sure she got it.

While many children are diagnosed around the age of two, the traits will have manifested before then. Otherwise, parents would not have taken the extreme step of having their child diagnosed. It is, after all, a very expensive thing to do. In Ontario, it costs anywhere from $3,000 to $5,000 to get an autism assessment. And that’s in a place with healthcare insurance. That amount is astronomical to most young parents. So they wait until they can get assessed through the province. In Ontario the waiting list was about two years prior to the commencement of the COVID-19 pandemic. It will be much longer now. In other words, people are correlating the diagnosis with vaccines simply because the diagnosis occurs around the same time children receive certain vaccines. Correlation is not causation, and society would do well to remember that. Making these assumptions has hurt not only autistics, but children who have subsequently contracted nearly-eradicated diseases that experience a resurgence when parents refuse to vaccinate their children.

Fear drives these issues. Parental fear for their children, societal fears about safety, political fears about elections where politicians use autism as part of their platform, and celebrity fears about things they don’t understand. None of these fears are based on scientific evidence. And, of course, confirmation bias is something of a problem. People find sources that confirm their beliefs, rather than looking at evidence presented from all sources to determine the most likely point of truth.

One additional comment from William Shatner had to do with people telling him to stay in his lane, and was his response that (paraphrasing again) only people under thirty would use that phrase. Seeing as many of Donald Trump’s cohorts use that term, and many, many people of my own generation also do so (unrelated to Trumpism), he’s off-base on yet another assumption.

Neurotypicals do not understand neurodivergents. Psychologists and psychiatrists think they understand us without bothering to ask if they’re right.

So, speaking as a 49-year-old autistic woman, who very clearly has had an online presence for many years and is a real person who writes real books, William Shatner, stay in your lane. You’re hurting autistics in a way you can’t even understand because you’ve never experienced real hate and prejudice. You are more of a danger to society than any autistic, due to the garbage you speak. No one is threatening your life for something you have no control over. Autistics are already being abused and killed. We don’t need more ‘help’ from celebrities.

Going Non-Verbal, the Dangers of Advice, and the Latest Music and Writing News

Since this blog was originally intended more for personal use, and to practice my writing, I'm going back to that format for a little while. It helps me get back into it, and also fills people in on how things are going in my world.

I went non-verbal the other day for nearly twenty-four hours. Normally I talk a lot around my husband, but I couldn't bring myself to speak. I was upset about something that wasn't anyone's fault (anyone currently in my life, at least), and couldn't talk about it. It was so huge inside me, taking over every thought I had so that I was unable to care, or speak about, anything else. And I wasn't ready to discuss the problem until I figured out what the hell it really was.

I do that a lot. I didn't even notice I was doing it, but as I look back at my life with the fairly recent knowledge I'm autistic, I see the behaviours I didn't see before. I see the years of getting lost in books. I see the many months of gaming, when I barely spoke to anyone. Later in my life it was guitar, where I practiced for hours every day. My activities are nearly always solitary. Music is a little different, since I'm making a career out of it and my husband rehearses with me, but my whole life has revolved around activities where no one else was involved, and I had no need to talk. Even my jobs were solitary. And my work still is, for the most part.

I spend my time in silence thinking about what's bugging me. Until I have it sorted, and find a solution, I don't want to talk at all. Not about anything. Even when I do have a solution in my head, I don't discuss the problem unless it involves others and I have no choice. People have complained about that trait, telling me if they had known they would have been there for me, but I don't want anyone there for me. Usually that involves advice I would never take, and since people are insulted by that I prefer to avoid the situation.

It's not just about not taking advice, since I don't like giving it, either. Even when people ask me. I don't feel people should be giving advice on anything unless they're experts and fully understand the situation the other person is in..and they should never give advice without being asked for it. Anything else is rude and intrusive. I find it offensive. It's like saying to someone, "You're too stupid to figure this out on your own, so let me tell you what's best for you."

Maybe it sounds arrogant, but my IQ tests say I'm intelligent, so to assume I don't know how to fix a problem in my life is a pretty big assumption. If I don't have an answer and need help, I go to people who have the real answers.

When I was much younger, I was insecure enough to listen to what everyone else thought. So I gave up on music after being told I didn't stand a chance of making it, because so few people actually did. I believed people who had no knowledge of the industry, or even of music in general. I did the same with my writing for a while, too, until I realized those people had no clue what they were talking about.

Naysayers derailed my life plans for a very long time, because I allowed myself to believe them. But when I finally got to the point where I no longer cared what those people thought, I realized I needed to listen to the people who knew exactly what they were talking about. I listened to published authors who were friends of mine, and became a published author myself. My books have done better than I expected, considering what people used to tell me.

When I was finally ready to go back to music, I decided to take lessons from someone who knew what they were doing. I needed an expert. A heavy metal rock star. Which is exactly who I got. If you're a guitarist, Michael Angelo Batio probably needs no explanation or introduction. I asked him for private lessons, and since the first lesson worked out well, we've continued them since April. He's offered to solo on one of my songs, so that's going to be an awesome experience for me, and he's helped me so much with my confidence (not to mention my playing). Michael's an amazing teacher, and he's been super nice to me.

But that's the difference, isn't it? Getting advice from the people who know what they're doing can make all the difference. Especially if they encourage you. I've been lucky in recent years to have the right people in my life, encouraging me to follow through on my dreams.

My husband has been terrific from day one. He never doubts me, and that alone makes me feel like a success. He's never laughed at me, and most partners would have, I think, when their late-forties wife says she's starting a metal band. Instead he wanted to join. He's supported my dreams in every way.

My past catches up with me a lot, though. The trauma I endured as a child will never be gone. I was changed, inside and out, by physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. The latter lasting about nine years. The two former lasting two or three decades, depending on how you look at it. There is no way to forget all that. I recovered from the sexual abuse, despite being sensitive about people talking like sexual predators. I think most women are, though. Friends will unknowingly echo things without thinking about what they're saying, so I'm left feeling like I have to say something about it, and it puts a strain on my friendships.

Right now I'm going through situations with a number of people in my life, and I'm having a hard time coping with all that. It gets to be too much, so I drop out of socializing entirely. While I've been pretty verbal with my husband (with occasional exceptions) I haven't been speaking to anyone else. I don't make phone calls, no matter how much I love someone. Phones freak me out. I consider them a necessary evil when I have to yell at a company for lousy customer service. The only person I speak to, verbally, other than my husband, is Michael. It's surreal, I know.

Fear of a deadly pandemic does not help. My daughter works in a retirement home and I don't think any of them are taking enough precautions, so I bitch at her (in text) for that, knowing at some point she's going to stop speaking to me entirely, but also knowing I don't want her to die. I'd rather have her silence and anger, than have to bury her, if it means she remembers to wear a mask and take all the precautions.

Our Premier isn't doing anywhere near enough to stop the spread of the virus, because he's more interested in doing things for businesses than in preventing deaths, so it's left up to individuals to do what they know is right. The problem is, people aren't yet understanding where this virus is going, and some are being truly stupid about it. We are not going to get the vaccine in time to prevent a horror show, and because a vaccine is on the horizon, people think they can relax their guard. As our Prime Minister has said (and yes, I think he's a tool, too), a vaccine in a few months' time will not help you if you get the virus tomorrow. They're preventative measures, not cures.

A deadly pandemic is actually right up my alley when it comes to what we have to do to avoid getting sick. I'm not a germophobe by any means, but I'm definitely an enochlophobe (someone who fears large crowds). I like staying home, and happily remain there for months at a time. I mean that quite literally. I don't leave for very long stretches, and I've been like that for years. I go out only if I absolutely have to. Right now there is no compelling reason for me to leave our home. My husband goes to see his son (even though they remain physically distant and wear masks, they still hike together nearly every day), and if there's anything we need he picks it up. A doctor's appointment is pretty much my only reason for going anywhere, and those are done by phone mostly now.

The interesting thing about my life is that we recently bought, and moved into, an RV. There were a few reasons for this, but one of them was so that we could do a bit of travelling at some point without having to leave our house behind (the only way I would ever be willing to go anywhere). We still have residence in the form of apartment space, since you need that to keep your healthcare, driver's licence, and insurance, but the last thing we wanted was to be stuck in a crappy apartment in an even crappier city. We enjoy being able to live in the country, where the worst thing we hear is a cranky neighbour and howling dogs (wolves?) in the middle of the night. We don't get sirens and gunshots anymore, which were not good for my stress levels.

I'm going to have some YouTube videos out about the whole thing once I get them edited (takes me forever, seemingly, and I have tons of footage). I'll be putting some on my writing channel, with a focus on the whole off-grid living aspect to things as I put in solar panels and an incinerator toilet, etc. For my music channel (available here, though it doesn't have much on it yet) I'm going to be showing another side to RV living, where we get to travel to various recording studios in Canada, as well as Canadian guitar luthiers. I intend to record in the studios we visit, if there's a song we're currently working on, so there will be footage of the recording process, as well.

None of that will happen while the pandemic is raging, of course, but waiting for the vaccine gives me extra time to practice and build up my music following online in the meantime. It also gives me more time to prepare for the eventual day when I have to perform live (terrifying thought). I'm planning to do a bunch of livestreams on YouTube while I have no fanbase, just to get used to the concept. It should be interesting to see what goes wrong there. I haven't been getting along well with technology lately, and seem to have become something of a luddite; hopefully I can figure it all out without a fatally-embarrassing delay.

As for my writing, well, I have quite the ambitious project on the go, so you'll have to bear with me. One happy reviewer was hoping for another book showcasing a couple who appear in book three of my trilogy (Salvage Rights, it's called), but I was already planning another trilogy that connects to the first one so they will not be disappointed. The characters they liked will be prominently featured.

And that's not even the ambitious part. I've got another series in the works, and it encompasses thousands of years of human history, so the research has been complex. I have some help with that, since my husband has a degree in social anthropology. Not only does that mean he understands human culture, but he also understand how to do proper research. I've got a video interview planned with him that I'll be sharing on my writing channel, talking about the research we do.

If you're curious about the writing channel, you can find it here. It's about writing for a living, so I've got videos on there about publishing, editing, etc. I was supposed to have a tour of the Diefenbunker up a long time ago, but the pandemic has prevented that, too. I did provide a 360 tour someone else created, which is what I used to help me visualize the Diefenbunker while I was writing Salvage Rights. I can visualize my own mental creations just fine, but I needed the research to be accurate for a real place.

For now I'm going to keep practicing, and also get back to my writing routine. Hence this blog post. I've gotten out of the habit of writing all the time, but my ideas are starting to clutter up my brain again. It's time to get them written down. I haven't written much of anything other than e-mails since I published Salvage Rights in March (right after they announced a global pandemic...lovely timing, that). I do have a couple of chapters done for the newest books, so they're in the works.

The song I'm recording with Michael is called So They Say, and it's about my musical journey, so it's a very personal song on a variety of levels. It will be out pretty soon, so I'll let everyone know when that happens. I hope you're all staying healthy and safe. (And reading plenty of books & listening to lots of music, of course.) I'll talk to y'all again soon!