Schrodinger’s retirement

 

I have wondered in the past about whether I am ready to retire. Now it’s starting to feel as if I don’t have a choice. 

Officially I am still working. I update my business website every month. I sometimes post about work-related things on my social media (although I’m more likely these days to be posting about books and music). And I still go on LinkedIn, although I hate it.

And one day last week I went on LinkedIn and in just a few minutes I saw an ex colleague who’s been out of work for six months and is desperate for a job, and three freelances advertising their “availability”.

I have “availability” too. In the past everyone was embarrassed to admit it, because there was a stigma about not being successful. But when it’s happening to everyone, it has to be said.

I’ve been freelance, this time round, for over 12 years and I’ve always assumed I could continue for as long as I wanted. But maybe that’s no longer true.

Atypical Girl playlist: part 1

You can't just read a book about music: you have to listen to it, too.

My memoir Atypical Girl is in four parts so I've just made four playlists to go with it. Here's number one: the (partial) soundtrack to my life from 1976 to 1980. I hope you enjoy it. 

Book review: Teenage Daydream

In March 1980, the NME carried a major cover feature about “Women in Rock”. Dolly Mixture were not interviewed or photographed but they did appear – cited as an example of what not to do. Their “cutesy” image wasn’t considered feminist.

In fact, as bassist Debsey Wykes’s memoir Teenage Daydream makes clear, the all-girl trio (Debsey, Rachel Bor and Hester Smith) were as authentic as any indie rockers. They looked young and naive because they were young and naive. After all, the three friends were only teenagers when they formed the band in 1978, and still in their early twenties when it stopped (they never officially broke up).

Old ladies to the front: in praise of unglamorous bands

Ruth Miller with the Unglamorous LP.

Years ago, when Twitter was a place where you  could find community, I came across an account called Punk Girl Diaries.  The two women behind it were punk fans and musicians Ruth Miller aka Vim Renault and Polly Hancock aka Lene Cortina. 

It turned out they did a website (no longer active) and an excellent fanzine, which I immediately subscribed to. And merch, too: I now have a Punk Girl Diaries T-shirt with the word “Typical” on the front. 

Autism resources part 2: Recent books

My first autism reading list was given to me after I got my “diagnosis”.  My second reading list is books I found myself. These are some of the books that have come out since I found out I was autistic. And they are all by autistic writers. There’s much more now, and more being published all the time. 

As Joanne Limburg says in Letters to My Weird Sisters about learning from other lives, “I realised that other people had experienced the same kinds of painful moments and for the same reasons.”

There is so much I identify with when reading about other people’s experiences, especially women. Especially the older ones.

In  a world where so many "experts" and researchers still get it wrong (and where the "diagnostic manual" trades in deficits)  there's a notable amount of consistency in the way that #ActuallyAutistic people describe their own experiences among themselves.