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Something Psycho This Way Comes – 25 years later.

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When I was in High School, I made some good friends. All of us were a bit odd. I had my ASD, another member had MS (multiple sclerosis). We had a goth boy who dressed in all black and wanted to be a vampire. This was the Buffy the Vampire Slayer era, not the Twilight Era, so big mean, demonic vampires, not sparkly lonely vampires.

We had a girl who was very vocal about her rights as a woman (shaved her head like Sinead O’Connor). And two “ordinary” guys. We all liked anime, and that was what tied us together. We were an unofficial Anime club at High School. But at that time, Anime was mostly unheard of. People didn’t connect Astro-boy, or Speed Racer to Anime, and so the only example people thought of was Sailor Moon. You can imagine this made us very unpopular. Tie that with our other unusual characteristics, we started calling ourselves the “Psychosix” (there were six of us to start with).

By college time, our numbers had fluctuated, a few people left, and other joined. By the time we finished college there was around 20 of us. We had a website (Psychosix.com) where we posted our art, our songs, our writings, and our comics. We had all created Original Characters to base our stories around, and it was just a way for us to express ourselves.

Over the years, the Psychosix has drifted apart mostly. I am able to contact about half of them, but don’t do so often. The other half have moved on with their lives, and are spread around the world.

I, being the pack-rat that I am, have most of the files on my back-up. And have decided to start re-releasing updated versions. (My Gateways novel I am working on is one of these).  When I use other people work, or art, I contact them if I can to ask permission.

Our member from Los Angeles, Fritters had made comics using sprites from an online avatar making system. I am taking those and using AI, fixing them up. (I know AI Art is not popular with a lot. I am not a great artist anymore, and time is not my friend, so please understand).

I will post these comics up as I finish them.

Each time I do, I will post a profile of one of the characters.

This week is “Robyn Goodfellow”

And the Comic is “Something Psycho This Way Comes #2.

In 19 years, nobody said a word.

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19 years ago, I got married. At the time I was working in South Korea. When I got married, Korea told me that my marriage certificate would not be acceptable for 6 months. Basically I would have to leave my new wife in the Philippines for half a year. I was not ok with that. China, at that time said it was ok. We could come together and work here.

I must have told people that story 100 times over the last 19 years. We applied for our visas in the Chinese embassy in Manila, Philippines. We got the visas. and we came over. 19 years ago, The embassy gave me and my wife visiting visas. The company I was going to work at fixed our visas in country. I now had a work Visa. For 19 years, I thought My wife had a spousal visa. She did not. She had a “Personal Business Visa.”

19 years.

When we moved to Beijing, 18 years ago, nobody batted an eye. They transferred our visas to Beijing and said nothing. Nobody thought it strange that my wife didn’t have a spousal visa. We invited her family to visit using what we thought was her dependence visa as proof of relation. Nobody wanted to do the paperwork to fix that. and worst of all, nobody said anything. Her “Personal Business Visa,” somehow connected her to me closely enough that we could invite her family under my visa? Not once, but 3 or 4 times. No questions asked.

I moved through 3 companies in Beijing, nobody said anything. The HR departments all just looked at it and shrugged, then extended the visa. Why would they question it, if she had been using it for so long.

We moved to Shen Zhen recently. They cannot transfer my visa down like I did when I moved from Haerbin to Beijing 18 years ago. Maybe the policy changed, maybe one or more of my old companies bent the law. I don’t know. So my new company is filing for completely new visas. Work, and spousal.

Great.

But now we need paperwork from the Philippines that we didn’t before to prove our marriage certificate is real.

Ok.

Great.

But nobody seems to know what is needed. We were told to get it translated and notarized. We did that. We got it translated, and then took it to the notary. They re-translated it and stamped that the translation was accurate. Not a Notarization.

Then we were told to get it authenticated at the Philippine Embassy or Consulate. So we headed to GuangZhou, the capital city of this province. We walked into the Philippine Consulate. Nope. They don’t do that.

Now we are told that it has to be apostilled. Which can be done right next to the government building in Manila. Only there.

We have been running around for 2 weeks getting paperwork that didn’t work, wasting money. The Notary was the first person in 19 years to mention that my wife’s visa was not a spousal visa. Itw was not a dependent visa. This shocked me.

For the record, up until 2 years ago, the translation and notary was what was needed. But 2 years ago China joined the Hague Convention. An international agreement that says only apostilles are needed from governments and no longer translations, authentications and notarization.

Good to know for the future, but apparently most people here didn’t know that. Including the Philippine government website… Their Consulate knew it, but the Consular website did not.

What does this all mean. There is a very good chance, my wife will have to leave the country next week. Just before I start work. She will have to wait until my paperwork is processed on August 5th, then start her processing from the Philippines. Most likely, she will be able to return mid to late September, if she has to go. We are exploring all options right now.

I am not blaming. The last 3 schools probably just assumed I knew. But, damn it sucks. Nobody in 19 years happened to mention, “Hey your kids are dependents, but your wife isn’t.”

I want to write…

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I find writing very therapedic. I love writing, as most Autists do. But often times I just can’t do it. I will sit down with a great idea in front of my computer, and then something will interrupt me. Once I am interrupted, my brain doesn’t reset to work mode.

Tonight I opened my novel, Gateways, I was about to start writing ideas for chapter 5. As soon as the file loaded, my wife sat down beside me. She wanted to talk about our current Job hunt. I understand that, and I love my wife. So we talked about the future for a few minutes. maybe 5. and she left me to continue my writing.

It was gone. all my thoughts on the chapter had now been released to the wild. I sat there trying to focus, and I found I was no longer even in the mood to work on that book. So I opened up my New Valarians book. I started to make notes on Chapter 7 of that book, and it was not time to tuck my daughter in.

I love reading to my daughter, and tucking her in. It is one of my daily highlights. But when I sat back down, and stared at the book pages… nothing. Those thoughts had flown the coop. And I no longer felt the urge to work on that book.

So I sat staring at my screen, and drank my tea. and I thought I would share my notes on Autism and Writing.

Written Communication Over Verbal Communication.

Many Autists prefer to communicate through writing. There are a few reasons for this, but it starts with our difficulty with verbal communication.

When we speak to a person, there is an unwritten rule about the proper pace. How much time needs to be between each speaker. Too long, and the one speaker gets bored or thinks you are not listening. Too short, and you are too eager, or you are not listening, because you border on interrupting. Both are often labeled as rude. Also if an autist, like myself is talking and we get interrupted, we loose our thought process. We stumble, as we had our words laid out in our mind before speaking. When we write, we can take our time to plan out what we want to say. We can take our time, and not be interrupted.

Clarity is also an issue. When we want to communicate something, there is often a lot of details we want made clear. We want there to be no chance of misunderstanding, and so a lot of written messages are long. We cannot get that clarity when we speak. Allistic (neurotypical people) often ask questions to clarify. Once we have been asked a question, often times we have to spend time searching up the information in our brain to find the answer. Because of course the questions asked are not the questions we thought would be asked. Also the pause to find the best possible answer can be often seen as not knowing the answer. Thus it seems like we are deferring to the wisdom of the allistic person. Even if our information is more up to date, or correct.

I love writing. But I do not enjoy texting. I used to enjoy texting, back when it was simple. But nowadays, no. I will often times use voice to text, and then spend 15 minutes editing the text. You see when you communicate by text, there are now rules to texting.

You cannot make a large text, it is rude. You have to use simple words, because if you use real words it may offend the other person and be seen as patronizing them. CAPS CHANGE THE MESSAGE. So if you accidentally lock the caps on, you have to go back and rewrite it. Emojis are used to show feeling, and many other things. I liked it when there was just 5 emojis; 🙂 😀 😛 😦 @-}–

When I send text to people now I have to spend 5 minutes just scrolling through the emoji list. I’m asking myself which one is the correct one to use… I don’t know. If I put a flower, does it mean, I want you to have a happy day, or does it mean romantic feelings? Why do we even have an eggplant? and Flags? birthday cake? streamers? dogs? cats? soccer balls? Why can’t we just use words for these things?

When I am writing my novels, or my blogs, I do not need to use emojis. I can relish in the joy of real words. It is a blessing. It helps me de-clog my mind. However, sometimes, as is often the case in here, I feel it is unstructured.

It takes a lot of energy to structure my thoughts into comprehensible writings. Then to go back and add details can bean added hurdle. That’s kind of why lately I feel more like I am just rambling on my blog, but it brings peace to my mind and helps me sleep.

So that is where I am off to now.

Maybe this weekend I can get some writing on my books done.