Resurrecting Dead Nostalgia

To My Devoted Readers,

This Halloween was just like the others…but slightly different. It is the first Halloween celebrated with an acclaimed, published book under my belt. Therefore, I grew worried that professional commitments and/or priorities would steal time that has annually been delegated to this one holiday. Perhaps Halloween has always appealed to my tastes because for one day I do not look like the “Weirdest Person on Earth.” (I chose to walk around town in my pajamas and dirty t-shirt for this year’s Halloween costume, by the way!!)

I decided to volunteer for a Haunted House created by a neighboring town to raise funding for their town programs. My father has always warned me to be cautious about making too many commitments that are not “priorities.” It is my tendency to make promises that become burdens when the time comes to complete them. Fortunately, I had the wisdom to only volunteer for the haunted house one night as opposed to two consecutive nights.

Four hours in one night was more than enough especially because I ended up crouching in a tiny nook as the Haunted House’s librarian. (Not the most appropriate position for someone of my girth and height). My job was simple. I had to slam a dusty, dilapidated book closed and cry, “No Talking in the Library!!” A haunted house bereft of pyrotechnics and other special effects often relies on the human element to inspire fear. The players who jump out from behind the shadows to jar one’s senses and so forth. Emotions run rampant that are foreign to those of childhood years. Reality seeps into the fantastical like toxic ooze. I am a twenty-eight year old man not associated with the town who is involved in an endeavor mostly populated with children. Perhaps these are the kinds of actions that my father calls, “Asking for trouble.” Unnecessary actions shrouded in good intentions that make oneself more vulnerable toward unfair scrutiny…dirty looks…ridiculous skossup. I mean, gossip. (When I come across a word that does not please me I sometimes misspell it on purpose or transform it into gibberish.) But I WAS invited and those individuals who would harshly judge me are the minority. And chances are very strong they would judge me about something else just as ridiculous.

I had fun and my spine promptly realigned itself after my duties concluded. I worried about uttering an obscenity in the process of being isolated in that corner, but just ended up talking to myself. The cherubic, little girl kept warning me when someone was coming and the adults welcomed me into their fantastical creation. Obviously, I would probably not keep in touch with everybody and they probably have enough friends in their lives. But for those four hours our hearts beat as ONE!

The Haunted House actually took place two days before Halloween. The actual day itself conveniently fell on a Sunday, but was marred by my family’s decision to have their one brunch a year. They showed mercy by allowing me to carve my Jack O’Lanterns in the kitchen as they entertained in the dining room. Whether or not we have Asperger’s, it is not fair to be expected to let everything go. The one thing they put their foot down about is Trick or Treating. (They only let me visit one home of an elderly lady who could use some company). Once again, I let my Jack O’Lantern creations rot ever so slightly after October 31st had lapsed, but acknowledged the passing of the ritual and its completion! I had held on and made it work in a world that has often encouraged “letting go” of the unnecessary and age-inappropriate.

Looking in the Mirror Sometimes ….

A child lacks the ability to create a sense of self.  Who they are is literally the product of what their parents, teachers, and peers say they are.  As a result, there are plenty of young people and even adults walking around soulless – without a semblance of self-esteem.  I try to give presentations to groups of young people with AS and give them the knowledge that was often denied to me as a child.  No matter who you are or what you accomplish, there will always be individuals that want nothing to do with you.  It still happens to me once in a while even as a local celebrity with a plethora of personal and professional accomplishments.

Sometimes the rejections will be a consequence of the inappropriate behavior associated with AS.  Other times it will be because the other guy is a complete moron incapable of appreciating such uniqueness.  My father has this expression, “You can never reason or win an argument with someone who is a moron.”  As you get older, it will hopefully be easier to understand the difference.  In order to assuage some of my own bitterness, I remind myself that my much younger peers have more of a fighting chance.  They are not marinating in the lies that robbed me of confidence.  “What are you doing to bring this on yourself?”  “Maybe if you stopped acting so weird people would actually like you.”  “It is your own fault you do not have many friends.”  I’m now getting used to traveling to New York City and seeing total strangers holding out their books for me to autograph.  I am the extremely rare individual with high-functioning autism who has had the experience of being judged a celebrity as opposed to the usual sociopath.  But hopefully the young people I mentor will not have to write a book in order to gain a fraction of the respect that my life has been blessed with these days.  And it is not just individuals with autism who battle such strife.

I recently had the privilege of giving a presentation at a local middle school for students and faculty.  One of the female teachers was a strikingly beautiful thirty or forty-something year old woman.  (I would later remark that it was the most awkward presentation of my career so far.  It was imperative to deliver the presentation while pretending a beautiful woman was not sitting a few feet away.  A few years ago I probably would have said something obnoxious or stared.)

Fortunately, she paid for my book with a check that contained her home address.  I sent her a letter knowing there would be a slight chance she would find the gesture intensely creepy as others have in the past.  It took nearly thirty years before I realized that many of the people who would come to that conclusion would also find something else wrong.  Then I would try to placate them by struggling to get to point D.  Then they would be unhappy that I was not at point G.  And so forth.  Ultimately, I would drive myself crazy and please absolutely nobody in the process.  “Back off until you have backed off the face of the earth.  And let go of everything that makes you incredible until there is nothing left to hold onto.”

I recently had the privilege of having lunch with this particular woman and she even opened up about her personal life.  Like individuals with AS…her self-esteem had also been marred by romantic rejection and frustration.  I’m still wondering how the long-lost older sister of Jennifer Love Hewitt does not understand just how incredible she truly is.  It just seemed like many of my genuine compliments replenished a void that should not have existed in the first place.  I think one of the reasons my book has struck such a chord with the mainstream population is because regular individuals can relate to its themes.  There are so many beautiful and talented people walking around who are quasi-blind to how incredible they are as well as what they have contributed to others.  It does not matter if it is a real-life doppelganger from Desperate Housewives or a middle school child with Asperger’s syndrome.  Our failures and rejections will turn into psychological machetes amputating the reality that we have something to offer.  We start to become dead inside unless we seek out those elusive people who can see our beauty.  Regardless of whether I see this incredible woman again…I hope I reminded her how beautiful she truly is and succeeded in repaying the favor.  But during those droughts of time when such feedback is obsolete, it is more critical to look into the mirror and give to ourselves what is not going to always come from someone else.  With or without a social disability…

It takes a Daily Planet…

My family and I were having breakfast at the haven that has been part of my life for the past four years.  The Daily Planet. – a popular landmark and high school hangout in Lagrangeville, NY. I’ve also talked extensively about the Daily Planet’s magic in an essay called, “Fractured Fairy Tales.”  Some people turn to church, synagogue, acupuncture, AA meetings, or expensive psychotherapists to regain their bearings and find their higher power.  But I prefer one particular restaurant.    I glance across the street at my old high school, which harbors a vacillating mixture of fantastical experiences and demons.  But mostly the latter, which briefly invaded the Daily Planet a decade earlier as I look behind me at the section where I once met a young lady off the Internet.  The Daily Planet inadvertently became a host for what would immediately turn into a six-month case of Cyber Bullying.  The horror of that half-year is not nearly enough to fully contaminate the Petri Dish of Fantasy.  The walls are so infested with nostalgia that you can visit one hundred times and always discover something new.

“The Daily Planet quickly became a sanctuary where I could depend on the quirky ambience and its perpetually cheerful staff.  The walls were festooned with antique radios, 1950s movie posters, and New York Times articles chronicling major events of the last century, such as the moon landing and Nixon’s resignation.  Television sets, suspended from the ceiling, played grainy commercials from an era when owning a TV was a luxury enjoyed by affluent Americans.  And if you spent enough time at the Daily Planet, you would probably catch Ronald Reagan hawking dishwashing detergent or a leathery cowboy advertising cigarettes.”

I accidentally catch myself looking at a young, attractive waitress and our eyes meet.  I sharply jerk my head in the other direction like a Pavlovian, conditioned reflex.  Women have been unforgiving when I accidentally stare at them and in some extreme cases, three seconds of staring have resulted in many months of dirty looks or irrational fear.  Someone once asked me in a condescending tone, “Is staring part of your autism, too?”  I should have answered, “Non-autistic people stare, too.  It’s just that individuals with Asperger’s syndrome have more trouble not making it so obvious!”  Like the fart simultaneously muffled with a precisely-time fart, staring at beautiful women is an artform of not getting caught.  By now, I should trust the Daily Planet not to permanently condemn me for such a benign, social error.

My stare-ree immediately walks over to my family, “I am sorry to disturb you.  But are you Jesse Saperstein?  I am reading your book!”  If I had consumed my morning caffeination I could have remembered her exact words, but they were complimentary.  For sure, they lifted me to the stars as the Daily Planet has done for years.  A Composite Beacon of Self-Nourishment.

I wonder how many first-time authors have thanked a diner in their Acknowledgements Section But I have.  Check the last page of my book if you do not believe me.  I’ve also talked extensively about the Daily Planet’s magic in an essay called, “Fractured Fairy Tales.”  Some people turn to church, synagogue, acupuncture, AA meetings, or expensive psychotherapists to regain their bearings and find their higher power.  But I prefer one particular restaurant.

 The old adage, “It takes a village to raise a child,” never ends for someone with a social disability like autism.  My life has dramatically changed over the past few months.  Instead of calling me a stalker…individuals are calling me up to do radio interviews and lecture at their institutions.  After the book was published on April 6th, I had my first online date where the woman was still interested in going out with me after the second date.  Life is now an alien reality compared to most of my peers who are inundated with the constant social and professional failures synonymous with Asperger’s syndrome.  What people sometimes forget is that I am almost the same person I was in college when the student body sometimes treated me like a social pariah and peppered me with monikers such as “Sketchy Jesse, Scary Jesse, Running Jesse, etc.  There is obviously more self-confidence lately, but I have not changed that much since those days when I was calling up a construction company in desperation…hoping they would pay me to sweep up wood chips and other miscellaneous debris.  My success is what sometimes happens when there are enough Daily Planets in the community.  People and places with the capacity to gaze beyond the superficial film of weirdness.  Where the realities of living with Asperger’s syndrome have a divine obligation to just “back off” and human kindness is never atypical.