Great-neph M’s 10th birthday tea party today with his cousins and older family, which includes me. The theme was monster trucks, hence the last-minute cake decoration (above) made by his mum which I thought was magnificent.

Accommodations were made for the autistic members of the family, which includes me, but I didn’t really need them as the adults and kids tended to separate and I just hung with the kids in the garden. While they might be louder I deal with it pretty well. I think it’s a bit like how I find being in a country where I don’t really understand the culture or language and so can’t engage on a cognitive level. Engaging with the adults, however, would involve unavoidable comprehension which can quickly get exhausting.

I sent M a joke I saw on Mastodon. ‌If you sneeze and fart at the same time… Your body takes a screenshot. “I am so glad you are my uncle” he replied. [heart melts]

‌The Strange World Of… The Cramps

“Ten points of entry for novices and converts alike”. Doesn’t include my personal favourite but that’s not a problem.

Saw someone mention Nero fiddling while Rome burned and it occurred to me that I’d always pictured this as him playing the violin. It only occurred to me today that it might have been a little less literal. Of course history is inconclusive.

Ignore That Feeling with Fern Brady and Alison Spittle

New podcast on my feed which I’m enjoying more than I expected to. Helps that Fern is very articulate about her autism (I can highly recommend her book which was transformative for me) and brings that into her observations about seemingly facile nonsense. What should have been a silly piece about Bonnie Blue, of all people, stuck with me for quite a while. Alison Spittle is new to me but I’m liking what I hear so far. A nice find.

M got some pizza socks which he was very pleased with. Like most things young kids get I find myself immediately trying to decode them, or at least assuming it’s something I’ll never be able to decode but it’s cool that they have this thing that comes from a deep lore, like that Minecraft chicken or whatever. Pizza socks! Yeah! But it seems they’re just pizza socks. Which should teach me something but I’m sure won’t.