The Overshare #7

Poetry, Hannah Gadsby, and setting up an aquarium

Our last newsletter for the year is coming to you on International Day of People With Disability (IDPwD). IDPwD is a United Nations observed day aimed at increasing public awareness, understanding and acceptance of people with disability. I would like to say we planned it that way, but that wouldn’t be entirely true. We gave up on our planned pub dates a while back, so this is a happy accident. But now that we are here, it is a great time to recommend seeking out the work of disabled writers and other artists. If you are a reader, have you read any books by disabled writers this year? Or in the news, have you read up on what is happening with the NDIS? If you have any book or article recommendations, please leave us a comment below.

The Overshare is broken up into seven sections: Listen Up–for all things auditory and musical, All The Feels–for sensory gadgets and neurodivergent products we are loving, Off The Shelf–bookish things including what we are reading and upcoming events, Uh Oh–life disasters, bloopers and social mistakes, Leaving The House–pretty self explanatory, Who Put Me In Charge–challenges in parenting, executive functioning, and life admin, and Scratch Pad–to share new writing bits and pieces. Let’s do it.

Listen Up

Anna: I listened to The Garret podcast while driving to the chiropractor. Hearing Astrid Edwards (legend) interview Andy Jackson (also legend) was exactly what I needed right now. The difficulties, joys and pain of writing disability and medical trauma are real. I’m fighting many of the same battles they speak of while writing my current manuscript. While driving through the bush to have my spine adjusted, as I must do every two weeks, I realised the importance of including some poetry.

Penni Russon spoke about poetry’s special relationship with trauma and processing trauma. She made me a Vimeo within hours of me pleading with Twitter for help structuring my novel (even though it’s mostly written). I use Miro every day now, not the one Penni mentioned but that’s not the point, haha! I legit shed tears that someone so amazing – someone I look up to and who writes magical words I can’t get enough of – took the time to help me out. Penni is good people.

Read a poem or two by Andy Jackson here.

All the feels

Kay: In what is a bit of a ‘Homer Simpson buying Marge a bowling ball’ move, we are getting our kid fish for Christmas. It will surprise no-one to hear that I did a lot of research about what tank is going to be best for us, based on price, size, functionality, and appearance. We ended up with a Fluval Flex tank, which is hopefully going to double as a nightlight and sensory experience in our bedroom once we have it all set up. It has pretty, colourful, changeable lights and we have fitted it out with some easy-to-maintain plants, because in my research I discovered aquascaping, which is underwater gardening. I am already obsessed. The tank is set up in a top secret location as we get the water prepped, and we will go out and get the fish a few days before Christmas. I did not realise how much work goes into having fish, and we have steered away from goldfish because they sound like they are quite difficult to keep alive. I will report back on the success of this endeavour, both in surprising A, and in maintaining our new underwater habitat. Wish me luck!

Anna: Kay, I have an unofficial degree in fish keeping. We need to talk.

Kay: I have SO MANY questions.

Off the shelf

Kay: I have read a lot of good books lately, but I will keep my recommendations to two absolute favourites. The first is Stars In Their Eyes by Jessica Walton and Aska. It is a Young Adult graphic novel. Here is the blurb:

Maisie has always dreamed of meeting her hero, Kara Bufano, an amputee actor who plays a kick-arse amputee character in her favourite show. Fancon is big and exciting and exhausting. Then she meets Ollie, a cute volunteer who she has a lot in common with. Could this be the start of something, or will her mum, who doesn’t seem to know what boundaries are, embarrass her before she and Ollie have a chance?

I haven’t read many graphic novels, but this one has made me want to pick up more! It was just such a delight and a treat and a weighted blanket of a read. Loved it.

My other recommendation is the third novel from autistic romance author Helen Hoang–The Heart Principle. I have loved all of Helen’s books, but this one especially has my heart. Protagonist Anna is a violinist deep in burnout. We follow her as she gets an autism diagnosis, starts to learn to self advocate, and deals with taking on a caring role for a family member. It is so beautifully done, with humour and heart. And I loved the romance, of course.

Oh, and I mentioned a Social Queue giveaway, so here it is! Like or comment on this post and I will do one of those random number generator things to pick a winner of a copy of SQ as well as some other goodies. Maybe I’ll find you a cool leaf and put that in the package! Who knows, but you have to be in it to win it :)

Anna: I ordered lots of poetry. Watch this space.

Uh oh

Anna: Uh Oh my book: part 354. I did a bad thing. I found a writing partner, and now I struggle without their help. I share my screen while they sit on Discord voice chat. They saved me by reading my work aloud every time I get distracted. Did I mention my ADHD? I’m all ‘omg I wrote this bit after going to that thing with the whats-it and it was SO FUN let me find you a picture…’ and I immediately hear my novel being read out, a grammatical error I must fix, and I’m back to work. You can’t buy this kind of service, but if you could, I would recommend. The Uh Oh is that I have one chapter left to write and it’s a school formal. A formal?! I need to choose how to dress them all up and do social things and the whole process hurts a LOT. Feel pain for me, please.

Kay: Formal makes me stressed just thinking about writing about it. Good luck. I am so end-of-year-tired and overwhelmed with my workload at the moment, as well as being back in full-time parenting, so my Uh Oh is more of a general feeling that my brain is glitching. When I am stretched like this I tend not to be as in control of my anxiety, or my frustration with other people’s mistakes. My mask slips and I am a blunter, more agitated version of myself. I am working on not seeing that through the lens of ‘rude’ behaviour (as it has been labelled for most of my life) and instead as an indicator that I need to prioritise more down time.

Leaving the house

Anna: WE WENT OUT.

Kay (legend) got me tickets to Hannah Gadsby (legend) and we met at South Bank. I had a hair cut *on the same day* but the buzz of feeling like myself again made up for the fatigue of two outings. I have a new phone and took a lot of pictures because I was early and focusing on the micro world relaxes me. The flame tree was incredibly beautiful - check out my pic!

I put headphones on to stop accidentally hearing the passer-by’s conversations and constructing endless stories about their lives. I rang a friend in Canada and we talked about the coming snow there, versus the humidity of Brisbane. I did the thing where you wonder why I don’t go out every day - it’s so lovely!

Kay and I ate dinner and talked and talked. There’s more to say than we will ever manage. She has such exciting things underway that I can’t talk about. I continually gush with pride that she will be my friend and even work with me.

Kay is the best of company, always, and she helped me know what to do once we had to actually went in to the performance. To have a person I have leave the house to see who I know will understand and catch me and never judge is golden. Kay, you rock.

I’ve never seen a live comedy show before because comedy frightens me. It’s so often at someone’s expense. I can’t laugh at things I believe are wrong to say. Hannah (my mate Hannah) makes comedy accessible by making funny stories that don’t hurt anyone but netballers and mix-rabbits. Even netballers understand though, it seemed. Hehe. [no word from the rabbits]

Note: learn how to turn off new phone before going into live show.

Hannah, our new bestie, was also amazing. Great? Funny. What are words? Kay… help me!!

Kay: You summed it up perfectly! It was such a great night. A 2021 highlight for me, for sure. I was calling it an Overshare Christmas party, to celebrate a massive year.

Who put me in charge?

Kay: Christmas holidays with an autistic kid are a time when I steel myself for a few more battles than usual. I am adamant about protecting her joy around this time of year, and not letting neurotypical expectations get in the way of that. For us that means multiple viewings of Christmas lights, plenty of downtime, a lot of swimming, some scripting around how we receive gifts (we try to say thank you and if we already have it or don’t like it we can discuss that together afterwards), no photos with Santa (we like to go and spy on him from the upper level of the shopping centre and watch other kids get their photos), leaving events early if we need to, using headphones and screens as much as we need, and no forced social interactions.

I understand that while it is such an exciting time of the year, it is also a time of heightened anxiety, as routine goes out the window and more people want to interact with my kid. I love Christmas AND find it exhausting because I am coming up against those expectations myself, while prioritising advocacy for her. Let’s see if I can manage to get through it without having an existential crisis or plummeting into burnout…

Oh and on the topic of parenting, I loved this piece from Nas Campanella about pregnancy and disability for ABC.

Anna: What can I say. It’s the end of term and school goes weird. My son is home because he finished his assessment. His attendance has been nothing but amazing all term. The day he finished his formal assessment he then came home sick. Two days later he came home early again, migraine. He’s lost without the purpose of grades and I expect the rain has made people a bit silly. He has held on and held on and now his body and mind are starting to crash.

The last piece of compulsory work is to do a parent-teacher interview where he takes me through his achievements with a PowerPoint, on call with myself and teacher. It’s a thing we hate. I hate, and he hates. The teacher understands and wishes she could change the system but can’t. We all sit there and suffer to make to boxes are checked and he can progress. I am open with him about the system, I’m honest about education. Having been a teacher teacher-trainer (that sounds so weird) for twenty years means I get how powerless we all are without a principal to make changes, or without a trained disability teacher/rep in the school who has real power to make the experience accessible. Maybe next year, hey? For now? We game together for a day.

Scratch pad

Kay: I haven’t been writing anything other than THE thing so I don’t have anything to share :( I did put together a list of book recommendations for author Allison Tait that might help with Christmas shopping. It is ‘12 books with insight into autism and neurodiversity, from picture books to YA’. You can read it here.

Anna: I wrote about my heart. It’s a disability thing. This is the Scratch Pad and unedited work, so be kind!

From a heart that beats too fast

From a heart that beats too fast

Then waits a moment

Then boom and boom and boom

It makes up for the loss

with ectopic thrusts of blood

that leave me breathless

and unsure.

From a heart that feels too much

It bends.

It gives and gives and gives

until the well is nothing but sludge

and the bucket bounces back up empty

but dirty

to offer blank faces

and depression.

The weight of the dirt means

The water of life is heavy now.

I can’t access the gifts of the heart

The mud and slurry

are too massy.

From a heart that defies medication

The pharmakon

The poison and the cure

Little white pills

orange pills

let’s try the beige one for a while

The heart that won’t behave

No normal problems

Don’t stand still for more than fifteen minutes

or you might die.

From a heart that tries to escape

rising up into my neck

pushing words

up and up and up

but never quite out

I can’t tell you.

Dispersal of emotion bring tears

The distilled sludge allows water to escape

salty water

dehydration will make the condition worse

drink and drink and drink

crying is not communication

I tell my heart

and it stills again

busy with the

boom and boom and boom.

From a heart that needs peace.

Shush now

Your job is to beat

just push the blood around will you?

Not that fast

wait, not that slow

harder and add some pressure please

Why do you hate me?

You are MY heart, yes?

Please, just beat.