Look At This! Brain Rain Of The Week | 4.4.25
On Whateth Distracteth Me
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It’s time again for a bit of what took my ‘Tism for a ride over the last week, the things that distracted, elated, confused, worried, or consumed me. It’s already been a week since the first of these, which is weird. I don’t even pretend to understand the machinations of time.
As I mentioned last week, part of my Autism is this bizarre curiosity with, well, everything. I scream out LOOK AT THIS and hope someone else cares a little.
A reminder, before we get into this week’s list: If you have stuff you wanna discuss, talk about on here, or have me dive into with my bizarre opinions, leave a comment or send me a message and I’ll do what I can!
Onward.
1: No Taste Like Home - I always felt his talents were kind of wasted on Queer Eye, especially the newest season, so seeing Antoni get a chance to run his own show is pretty cool. Sarah and I watched this over the last two weeks, and ended up tearing up or crying in just about every episode. I can’t eat pretty much anything they eat in the show due to allergies, but the genealogical aspect married to a simple family recipe is cool. Plus, Antoni is just adorable and his spirit is infectious. Worth it, for sure, as it’s beautiful landscapes, beautifully shot by NatGeo videographers, and beautiful people learning beautiful things about their family histories. Beautiful.
2: Vaccines DO NOT CAUSE AUTISM - If this is controversial, I don’t know what to say to make you not be mad at me and I’ll probably lose some subscribers over this, but this has been taking up a lot of room in my mind as of late. I’m gonna rant a minute, so hold onto your hats. First: This ridiculous misinformation is being spread by the person literally in charge of the Department of Health & Human Services, and it’s so categorically anti-science, it’s hard to even know where to begin to respond. The beautiful brains over at
did a wonderful deep dive (a science deep dive) onto how this is just insanely untrue, and I encourage you to read every word of it, but I’ll just quote a part here that should be all we need to read:Vaccines, including the MMR vaccine, do not cause autism. This has been thoroughly studied—over 25 epidemiological studies, including a fantastic 2019 analysis of more than 600,000 children in Denmark, have refuted any link. There’s also no biological plausibility: no vaccine component can alter neuron connections, and most brain changes associated with autism occur in utero, well before a child receives vaccines.
The second part that has been really grinding my gears about all this, is that Autism is being treated as a fucking disease. I’ve mentioned and opined at great length that maybe, just maybe, Autism is an evolutionary leap and that maybe this majority rules bullshit about what’s “normal” or even “neurotypical” might be outdated, factually incorrect, and that just because something is different doesn’t mean it’s wrong. To hide behind misinformation and hurtful language, and to treat an entire population of people like lepers that were poisoned by a vaccine we got to help us NOT DIE FROM AN AVOIDABLE DISEASE LIKE MEASLES, is so mind-numbingly frustrating, I don’t even know what else to say about it. I guess we can just trust ol’ RFK Jr. and keep overdosing kids on Vitamin A instead?
3: Bob Dylan’s Insane Discography - We watched A Complete Unknown the other day, and loved it, and loved hearing the music. I was obsessed with Dylan in my high school days, and he was one of the big inspirations for teaching myself guitar. It’s funny how we ebb and flow with the music we listen to, falling into and out of obsession. Since the film, Dylan and his music have made a resurgence in the house, and it reminds me that I’ll always be most partial to his original, softer, quieter, folk sound than the more heavily produced electrical era stuff. Listen to the song below and tell me it’s not absolute lightning in a bottle?
4: Trans Day of Visibility - Monday was Trans Day of Visibility, and Sarah and I went to the rally at our State Capitol. We’re staff photographers for the ACLU of Montana, but we’d have been there anyway. Being photographers meant we get to capture amazing images of brave Montanans who are standing up for equality, for compassion, and for the basic human rights and dignity of a very disenfranchised community. Here, and everywhere. Rep. Zooey Zephyr, our amazing progressive, bisexual, trans representative, gave an amazing speech to close the rally out and honestly, we just felt lucky to be part of it, and to love and support the LGBTQIA+ community in every way we possibly can. Here’s a couple of photos from the day.
5: Nepali Himalayan Cedar Rope Incense - If you want a little life hack that makes your whole world better: Burn cedar rope incense in your house as often as possible. Your entire world will smell like the inside of the most magical and serene monastery, and you’ll just feel better. This kind is by far my favorite, hand rolled with all-natural lakta paper and pure cedar wood. IF you’ve been to my house, you’ve smelled this, and if you haven’t yet, you should. Trust me. I’ve talked of it before, but I’m just so in love with it and just reordered more, so it’s fresh on my mind.
There you go kids. A bit of brain rain from yours truly. A little mental precipitation. Why not. Thanks for being here, thanks for joining this community, thanks for subscribing and for those that help make this newsletter free for everyone else by upgrading, to you specifically:
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Oh, I loved every subsection of this post so much.
Folksy Dylan is one of my very favorite artist eras from anyone, ever. He deserves all that love. Matter of fact, let me go listen now. 😂
I agree 100% about the absurd vaccine arguments. People will do anything to avoid agreeing with scientific research.
I appreciate so much the ways that you & Sarah ally & stand with LGBTQIA+ voices.
I LOVE THAT YOU CALL THIS BRAIN RAIN.
Thank you for sharing your randomness. Your light shines like the rapture of truth outside the doorway between logic and belief.
Which brings me to your comment about vaccines and Autism. Similar to a “faith based” issue , it is quite difficult to change the mind of those who have made convicted decisions about what most regard as science/truth based concerns. If people can convince themselves of ideas without basis of physical or historical data, then we shouldn’t be surprised of what they will do with even the smallest association with data that contradicts the real facts.
There is sometimes that moment of self awareness that occurs when we realize we made a bad decision, but self-pride often gets in the way of admitting so. We hope that such decisions do not lead to the calamity known as FAFO, but it can. I am reminded of a friend who refused the COVID19 vaccine and ended up being incubated in the hospital and just before was told, “there is no more that we can do for you, and you need to call your family to say goodbye.” He actually survived, but refuses to speak to anyone about vaccines (pro or con). But when I look into his eyes, the rapture of truth is still there.
I’d like to believe that if we all knew how close to death we were in everyday life, through disease and accidents, we would be a lot more circumspect and considerate about many things… And maybe start buying our underwear a size bigger so we all stopped getting our panties so caught up in a bunch.