April's almost over...

... so I suppose it's time to inform you that April is Autism Awareness month. Others in the knitblog world (knitspot, brooklyn tweed) have been much more on top of this than I have been, but never fear. I have been Aware.

Almost accidently, I have run across two really interesting bits of entertainment that involved Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism. I really didn't have any idea of what Asperger's was or how it was different from other forms of autism before this month. Aspergers.com defines the disorders as :

"Asperger's Disorder is a milder variant of Autistic Disorder. Both Asperger's Disorder and Autistic Disorder are in fact subgroups of a larger diagnostic category. This larger category is called either Autistic Spectrum Disorders, mostly in European countries, or Pervasive Developmental Disorders ("PDD"), in the United States. In Asperger's Disorder, affected individuals are characterized by social isolation and eccentric behavior in childhood. There are impairments in two-sided social interaction and non-verbal communication. Though grammatical, their speech is peculiar due to abnormalities of inflection and a repetitive pattern. Clumsiness is prominent both in their articulation and gross motor behavior. They usually have a circumscribed area of interest which usually leaves no space for more age appropriate, common interests. Some examples are cars, trains, French Literature, door knobs, hinges, cappucino, meteorology, astronomy or history."

I listened to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime by Mark Haddon as an audiobook. I had sort of wanted to read this book for a while, but not enough to spend $15 on it. After listening to it, I have to tell you that it would have totally been worth the price. It's a written from the point of view of a 15-year-old boy with Asperger's who finds his neighbor's dog murdered in the middle of the night. The main drive behind the story is following Christopher as he tries to solve the murder, but in the process, he uncovers truths about his own life that he never expected. It was extremely interesting to have someone with the disease (even a fictional someone) explain his thought processes. When he explains why he does the things he does, the disease actually makes a weird sort of sense.

The other bit of entertainment was a movie I watched last night called Mozart and the Whale. It's billed as a kind of romantic comedy, but it's not all that funny (at least in my opinion. Smile-inducing, yes. Laugh-out-loud, no.). It's about two people with Asperger's who fall in love. The screen play was written by the same guy who wrote Rainman, and like Rainman the story is inspired by two real life people even though the story is fictional. I found it on the shelf at Blockbuster, and it was completely worth the rental price. It was just... interesting. I really can't give it a better description.

Interesting. I've used that word a lot in this post. So I'll use it again. Interesting.

In and interesting turn of events, I finished my socks. (I threw that "interesting" in just for fun. Ha!)

Pattern: Oak Ribbed Sock from Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks

Yarn: Sockotta (45% cotton, 40% Superwash Wool, 15% nylon) #5616

Needles: US2 dpn

Modifications: slightly shorter cuff. Accidentally decreased two extra stitches at the gusset, so I made it up in the toe decreases.

I'm not completely in love with this sock pattern (cool colors aside). They're kind of big, especially in the heel. See previous post about that. Also, while the rib was unique (k4, p1, k1, p1), it didn't evenly distribute at the heel flap, so the ribbing on the instep isn't in whole pattern repeats. Next time, I'm going to use a slightly thicker yarn with a smaller needle, and I'll shorten the heel flap. I do enjoy me a round toe, though. No nasty grafting.