Here in Taipei I am wearing a long-sleeve cotton shirt, cotton decorative scarf (it provides no warming function at all), normal pants and a light jacket is optional.

Me too. I don't think I'm on the AS although I did have a lot of trouble fitting in as a child and young adult (even now I'm a bit of a 'quirky' weirdo). But it's not likely I'll ever really know for sure if this is actually an AS thing, that caused my experiences, or just that I'm what some would call "neurotypical"…

From what I've seen, yes, it does outbalance. Parents I know who have kids with AS don't feel their kids are "pathologized" - they feel they're getting more of the help they need (although still more - and more funding - would be welcome). Diagnoses have been, in my observation and from what others have told me, to be…

I know a few people on that end of AS - the "quirky" or "prickly" ones. The general sentiment I understand is that they prefer having a 'diagnosis' to always feeling out of place and not knowing why.

Contempt makes you all cold in the crotch?

I recommend reading Carolyn Hax. She's one of the few advice columnists who doesn't do that.

THANK YOU!

3. "So, uh, you know Jim? The friend of mine who's been acting weird lately?"
"The one who always jokes you two should date and who seems to hate me and get all angry at you when you're not free?"
"Yeah."
"What's up with him?"

I see it happening - I'd hope my husband would tell me (especially if the friend was being angry and aggressive in other ways) if it seemed to go beyond some drunk joke (which it clearly has).

I totally see that convo happening in real life. If some weird friend of my husband's sent him dick picks, especially if that friend had been acting all aggressive, angry and homophobic, he'd tell me. I don't see what's so weird about that.

HEY NOW. I agree about the boleros but for some of us, the currently popular style of jeans look horrible on us, and we wear boot cut because it's the cut that flatters our figure. Rather than swaying with the winds of fashion - which always looks bad 5 years later anyway - we wear what looks good on us and HATERS…

Some of those are "U-G-L-Y, it ain't got no alibi, IT UGLY" ugly, but every once in awhile I come across a Vera Bradley bag I kind of like.

We can't all visit for just 2 or 3 days. My husband and I live in another country, on another continent, literally on the opposite side of the Earth. We don't visit for 2-3 days, because it takes about 2 days just to come home. When we visit home it's a 2-week affair at least, to get in both sets of parents and a…

Time to stop doing nice stuff for him, brother or not?

If we didn't live in Taiwan where it would be expensive and take a few weeks to get that delivered, it would have SO been in my husband's stocking as a gag gift (instead he gets a mug with a winking Japanese emoji that says "I LOVE MEAT". My sister is getting fuzzy pink leopard print tinsel socks).

Last year I made my grandmother a necklace - I'm pretty good at that sort of thing - out of real stones. Nothing too valuable - malachite, tiger's eye, garnet, a little real (but not very quality) jade, amazonite, that sort of thing. It was gorgeous.

Red dragonfruit (some has white inside, some has magenta red). Eat a whole one - they're delicious by the way, especially when they're ripe enough to have a slightly lemony taste - and your pee and poop will both turn magenta. Like Barbie's Dream Car magenta. Fucking fuchsia.

Okay, but how about they do something to combat corruption in industry and politics (which is more or less the same thing), sexism in Chinese culture (there's TONS), freedom of speech, true freedom of religion, and start treating non-Han minorities a little better, and maybe they could stop being such assholes about…