cosmolinguist | Entries tagged with andrew

My ex-husband knows and thinks and cares so much about Brian Wilson that I feel like I shared a polycule with the man.

Wandering around the house tonight, doing the last chores of the evening while the Doof is finishing up, I hear "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times" and I still know all the words, still remember the pained 20somethings Andrew and I were when we met and he introduced me to this weird lonely musician and all his feelings which were also our weird lonely feelings.

There was always something terribly melancholy for me in Brian Wilson's music -- there's a demo of "Still I Dream of It" that used to make me so sad that just thinking about the song made me cry uncontrollably -- and all the more once I left my marriage and never really listened to the Beach Boys any more. And the odd time I hear them, on the radio or like now, I'm always a little thrown by how weird the commercially-released songs sound, without all the unreleased versions layered over them in my mind because those were more common in my marital home (like I said: Not a parasocial relationship for me, but a parasocial metamour).

D made sure I heard the news, and I texted Andrew once I did. I just couldn't let such a thing go by without saying I was thinking of him.

I think both Brian Wilson and Andrew eventually "found the thing they can put their heart and soul in to," as the song goes, and I'm really glad for that.

I heard the news of Andre Braugher's death on the radio this morning and immediately picked up my phone to text Andrew to say I was thinking of him. (Something it turns out I could not do since my phone seems to have lost his mobile number!)

I was thinking of him because he loves this show and central to that love is how much he identified with Holt. That whole show is great representation of various kinds of neurospicy brains, and Andrew considered himself to be as much Holt as he was any of the characters (though he said he was about as much Boyle).

We watched Brooklyn 99 so much together that I haven't been able to see an episode since I left three years ago, and that is about twice as long as I was watching it in the first place and yet it never seems to be long since I've referenced Holt, whose representation of leadership I really admire.

The other day it was about how there's no such thing as the best dessert: "If you're still hungry, you should've eaten more dinner." But sometimes it's what he says when Rosa comes out as bi in an episode that gave me a more realistic depiction of what my parents would be like if I tried that than I ever expected to see in any media.

Holt says "Every time someone steps up and says who they are, the world becomes a better, more interesting place." And Andre Braugher really made me believe that, as he did so many great lines, in how he delivered it.

Andrew texted me this afternoon with details of the conveyancing fees (because I'm paying them). Then he sent another text saying

I get the impression that there's literally nothing further that needs doing -- they process the paperwork, I pay them, they work things out with the bank so the mortgage funds get transferred appropriately. BUT, I've had the impression there's nothing more I need to do roughly every week for the last four months.

Yeah, he has. I didn't think it'd be done nearly as quickly as he did, but we're both so weary of this.

We're playing this game on the easiest possible level and it still sucks so bad. It's taking up a lot of my brain space these last four months, even when there isn't often anything I can actually do about it.

I'm desperate for this whole process to be done but I'm also worried it'll be even more de-stabilizing in the short term. We'll see I guess.

Andrew is super excited about the Oxford vaccine news, since that's the one this country has the most of, and it's easiest to store and cheapest, so it speeds up when he can expect to leave the house again.

But he's more excited that, even by the time he's expecting his first dose in January, other higher risk people will already be completely immune because they're talking about starting to vaccinate people next week

Andrew publishes his podcast transcripts, and I'm editing the latest book of them.

This, his magnum opus, represents extensive research and devotion to the subject. I'm delighted for everyone to support the podcast and buy the books, it's very well done, it's just...not my cup of tea (especially after I've been hearing about it so much in the last two years; only eight left to go!). But some things lighten it up: The chapter on Buddy Holly keeps referring to him by his surname, which is normal, but means I keep seeing my name (one of them, anyway) and being confused because I haven't done any of these things.

And then a fact-check Andrew's already added:

The bass player on that song, Larry [THIS IS FALSE! IT WAS HIS BROTHER ALSO CALLED LARRY!]

Now therein lies a tale, I'm sure, I thought, but when I took a break and Andrew asked me "Have you found anything interesting in the book at all?" I told him about the Brothers Larry, it turns out I'd misunderstood the note and Larry was the brother of someone else and not of the other Larry after all.

When Andrew told me that, I had to say "Well in that case no, I haven't found much interesting in the book!"

I woke up at 3:30 and couldn't get back to sleep. About 11 I went back to bed for a nap, and was woken an hour later by Andrew's dad calling to talk to him about the result of the Lib Dems' leadership election, which is how we found out the result. I'm not surprised but I am sad and tired. Not a fun way to start (well, "start") the day.

I did do the lunchtime zoom for the third day in a row, and it's 2-1 now on whether it makes me feel better or worse, so that seemed worth doing. Yesterday (no, day before? I dunno) it just seemed to heighten the loneliness, which is a problem I have with video socializing sometimes, that "showing a hungry person pictures of food" thing. So I'm glad today was good again.

This afternoon Andrew and I did the rest of his PIP application. Well, the part of it that's hard work. And it is hard: it re-traumatizes people and reinforces horrible ableism, especially internalized ableism.

That wiped us both out, so the rest of the day has been mostly comfort TV and takeaway. So much rain outside I'm amazed it isn't a day I have to go to work! I was glad I got to stay inside.

Thank you so much for all your kind and supportive comments yesterday! I really wasn't expecting that. You all are the best.

Just a light little vignette today, for a change.

"You know how I'm fat and hairy right," Andrew said as we were getting in bed last night.

"Yeah..." I said. Usually it's his explanation for why he is always too warm and doesn't need a coat even in Minnesota winters (which is ludicrous because every other fat hairy person there does, including me who's always cold). But this time it came out of nowhere. Or so I thought.

"And you know how I'm doing yoga now?" he said.

"Oh no," I said as I reached to turn off the light. I knew now where this was going.

"That makes me a yogi bear!" he said triumphantly.

A minute later as he was lying down in bed he said mournfully, "I want a pick-a-nick basket."

6 Is there something you love to eat that no one else in your family likes?

If my family is "my parents" or "Andrew," then practically everything I love to eat is something they don't like: it's all vegetarian for a start, and I like spicy (for a white person) food, vegetables they won't eat, lentils, hummus, falafel, almost anything I eat that's vegan...

Honestly the list of foods I like that they do like would be much shorter. Considering that my mom doesn't really like dairy, I think the only overlap in the Venn diagram of what we all like might be "chocolate."

Andrew and I are re-watching The Good Place, and just before bed last night got to the episode where Tahani says Jason once asked her if the presidents on Mount Rushmore have butts on the other side and it occurred to me that that's one of the few things I can imagine any of my three partners saying to me.

Andrew does a music podcast so he occasionally is asked to guest on other ones -- he's talked about Elvis and the Beatles and whatnot. He just told me he's been invited on to a Springsteen podcast now.

I'm immediately excited, of course. I'm such a big fan. "Do you need help?" I ask. It's rare I get to know more about a music thing than him, so I am also excited for that opportunity. He says no it's okay, the guy whose podcast it is said he interviews people who don't know much about Springsteen. "But he says he always asks them one question at the end..."

"Oh, like your favorite song of his, or something?" I say, my mind immediately exploding into a constellation of potential in wondering how I would even begin to attempt to answer that.

"No, I have to look it up, hang on," Andrew says. "It's...'Does Mary get in the car at the end of "Thunder Road"?' "

"Yes," I say immediately, it's as obvious to me as my own name. My answer sounds so factual that Andrew says "Okay, I'll say that then," and I have to explain "No, it's not a trivia question, it's an opinion question! Haven't you ever heard the song?!" I'm so agitated I flap my arms dramatically and Gary comes over to check on me, so concerned is he at my tone of voice. But this is important! "Thunder Road" is definitely a contestant for my favorite Springsteen song (it's so obvious, though, that's the biggest problem...)! I remember it coming on once when I was in Asda and I just froze for most of the time it takes to listen to it; I couldn't understand why they'd play this when people were trying to grocery shop, I can't imagine how anyone could function normally during such an experience.

"I've heard it loads of times!" Andrew says to defend himself. "I'm just not a lyrics person!"

I pet Gary to reassure him I'm fine. Mostly. "You think you know a person..." I tell him. Gary is very sympathetic. As always. He's a good dog.

This morning,

miss_s_b told me "I remember you having written a blog post about what it feels like to be loved by an autistic person." She asked how to find it. I said that was a good question and I didn't know what tag to suggest but I'd try to find it myself. I couldn't (but I did tidy up some old tags and add a couple new ones in the process!).

This year my journal will be old enough to vote, so it might have easily gotten lost (it's not all tagged anyway; tags didn't used to be a thing and I went back and added a lot but I didn't get to everything). Or, I'm beginning to wonder if this isn't just something Jennie heard me talk about in person, or maybe on Twitter back when that was a thing I did...

It's been bugging me all day.

And, since I promised myself I'd blog every day and since it's Autism Awareness Day, ( I might as well write it now )

I woke Andrew up pretty early, 6:30, by accident. Normally when he's awake at that kind of time, I can cheer up/distract him by suggesting he go get us breakfast from the bakery, or walk to McDonald's for one of their terrible breakfasts. And now he just can't do that, and I'm sad again.

I know it's a little thing. But it feels like all our work has remained and a lot of the little joys of our lives have been taken.

Still, life is not without its joys. I sat in a cold but sunny garden this morning. I went to Asda early and was able to buy more dog food (the more important supplies!) and I even found bread. The shop was quiet, I didn't even have to queue. But I cried on my way home, I think because the busy street I live on was so quiet at half past eight. I know social media is full of messages about how this isn't a post-apocalyptic wasteland, it's a show of solidarity, and I know that but part of my lizard-brain is so unsettled by empty streets and empty shelves in the supermarkets.

Anyway, my list of joys went off the rails a bit there. Tonight Andrew and I watched a movie with some of my fellow bisexuals, via Netflix Party. Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, something we'd wanted to see anyway. I know people have had varying experiences with this, but it worked well for us -- I couldn't see the chat myself but Andrew was reading bits out to me. I laughed myself silly when somehow everyone's display name kept getting changed to the name of one person in the chat, it was a proper Spartacus-type situation. Because Andrew had to read out stuff to me ("one of the Francescas is saying 'omg I'm Francesca, question mark...' ") it was overlaying the audio description of what was clearly supposed to be a sexy scene of the title characters discovering bondage, and that made it even funnier. The movie was pretty good though, and I'm glad Andrew was around to answer lots of questions about comic book things in the chat afterward.

( covid mental-ness )

The trip seemed to go as smoothly as it can, largely because we booked disability assistance after it worked so well for me on my own last time. So Andrew got to ride in a wheelchair rather than walk and stand in queues, especially welcome on a day when his knees had been particularly bothering him.

I had enough assistance just from having someone around to follow, and it meant Andrew also had a break from having to read signs and navigate for us both. It meant I wasn't stressed or panicky -- I'd started to think having an anxiety attack was as much a part of airplane travel as eye-watering prices and security theatre, but I didn't even come close to one today, which I was really glad of. I've been mentally and emotionally so fragile lately -- I still feel like curling up and crying this evening, to be honest, and I have absolutely no reason to -- so I really didn't need anything else to feel bad about.

At my parents' now, they've got the TV on but are actually ignoring it and reading the newspapers as they always do in the evenings. Andrew, who pulled an all-nighter before we left and didn't really sleep on the flight, has gone to bed already. I slept a lot so I'm not tired but I'm bored to tears waiting for it to be an acceptable time for me to retreat to bed with an audiobook or something.

"Jesus it's cold," Andrew said when he came in from buying us breakfast from the bakery. "And that's me saying that!" Indeed. He doesn't own a coat and if it wasn't for me and the dog he'd never put the heat on.

I checked the temperature and its 36 (I still have my weather app set on Fahrenheit because I can't for the life of me get a good idea of, like, how to dress based on Celsius degrees), which is not great obviously but no worse than it has been some mornings lately. Great, I thought. If he's cold I'll have to put on all my clothes at once in order to go to uni today.

"It feels like a Minnesota winter!" he said.

"I look forward to waiting for a bus, then," I said. "Something I don't even have to do in Minnesota."

"You'll have to put on a woolly hat and gloves today!" Andrew said (as if I haven't been for weeks already). "And maybe take Gary in your pocket to keep warm!"

Aww. He wouldn't like the bus and I'm not sure he'd sit still for a lecture in language policy and planning, but I really love this idea. He is always a nice warm little doggie version of a hot water bottle.

"You tell your husband Kevin, I'll see him real soon" was the cliffhanger that episode finished on.

"I was just thinking about that this morning," I told Andrew. "Because we were talking about threats in this morning's lecture." (Forensic linguistics. This week was "Langauge Crimes.") About how far away you can get from explicit "I will hurt you"-type threats and have something still count as a threat (either illocutionary or perlocutionary! or both!). "So 'say hi to your spouse' could be fine or it could be...not! 'I know where you live' could be because your friend is coming to visit you."

"For Jennie, 'here's some chocolate' could be one!" Andrew said. (She's allergic.) I laughed, yep, he's got the idea.

I don't know if other linguistics students find as many real-life applications for what we're learning. But they seem to follow me around.

"You're watching something about science!" Andrew announced cheerfully, looking over to what he could see but not hear on my screen (I was using headphones) as I stood up to get dinner out of the microwave. I'd been about to disagree when he added, "or... UFOs?"

"Yeah, they have all of Ancient Aliens on Netflix now," I said, almost apologetically. I normally don't believe in guilty pleasures but this one I really am guilty about because the premise is so fucking racist. It's a holdover from my childhood and teenage love of such shows, which I enjoyed on the same basis as the science fiction I loved at the time, which was just as good stories I didn't believe a word of. Eventually I realized what a ghastly idea it is to believe that aliens are more likely than brown people being competent builders or members of a complex civilization, and now while I watch I'm practicing my critical-thinking skills by scoffing at the many unfounded assumptions and huge unjustifiable leaps in the "arguments"...but I do still watch.

"I can tell," Andrew said, "because of the extemely normal looking people talking, there." Which made me laugh a lot. Always the way: people who assume everyone else is inferior to them are never the exemplary specimens they imagine.

Today some Lib Dem friends were talking about what geographical title we'd take if we got into the House of Lords (yes this is an extemely normal conversation for us).

People were trying out what their names would be, so Baron of here and Baroness of there. And I just said I wasn't sure where I'd be Baronx of. (

miss_s_b ended up suggesting Jodrell Bank, and I live that idea as it's a real place I'm terribly fond of visiting but it was also a kind of mythic location when I was a teenager -- I think I first heard of it in Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy and as with everything in that book, from Basingstoke to Betelgeuse, it seemed unearthly to me. Also the first thing Andrew and I did when I first visited him here is go with his mum and then-six-year-old niece on a trip to Jodrell Bank.)

Andrew told me "I like Baronx as a title," and I thought Aw, he's so nice and affirming.

"Because it sounds like a supervillain," he went on.

Ha! I should've expected something like that shouldn't I.

I couldn't get to sleep until after 3am, my brain seemed all kinds of off-kilter. So the alarm being earlier was really hard to wake up for. I had to be at work early today.

But I was so much slower getting ready that I had to skip both a shower and walking the dog (he looks so hopeful when I'm getting ready to go, it's the worst thing to be leaving for work instead of taking him for a walk.

I did four hours' work, which I know isn't much for people who work full-time but I normally don't do more than two in a day. I feel bad because I've been flagging at work lately: I more often hear things like "You can make yourself a cup of tea too, Holly" or "we can save the phone calls until another day" (I have to do all the phone calls). I should be looking after them, not needing so much looking after myself. I was exhausted and headachy by the time I was waiting for the bus home.

I got home half an hour after Andrew woke up so as soon as he was ready we went into town. Andrew needed things from four shops, the last being his first foray into a mobile phone shop. He said he'd be more likely to use a mobile if he had "one that did apps" so rather than sending him to London this weekend with the usual old Nokia-style-brick, we got him a fairly inexpensive smartphone, with the friendly, competent help of the one shop assistant who wasn't a 20-year-old white boy. I was worried Andrew would get some macho kid trying to upsell him and just driving him away, but she was great.

It was all a lot of walking and crowds though, and there was a lot of rain.

Now I'm home and in an online meeting.

I should probably eat something? Can't imagine what though. I'd have gone to bed but I'm the only person who knows some stuff on the agenda.

Me: *buys a new sun hat because the one I had is too femme*

Also me: *notices on the bus on the way home that the new backpack I also bought, which looked red in the store, is in fact bright pink*

Ah well.

#

Had to get my third-choice Father's Day card for my dad, too, because the first two featured British words or ideas that I wasn't sure he'd understand or that I was sure he wouldn't. I remember this being a Thing in previous years too. Greeting cards are funny things.

#

I got Andrew a pair of sandals, so for the first time since I met him he has more shoes than feet. He always used to say "I only have one pair of feet so I only need one pair of shoes!" I've tried to explain the compromises between comfort and suitability for different purposes that lead me to have as many pairs of shoes as I do, and I have relatively few for someone presenting as a woman, but he's always been baffled.

But now his feet swell sometimes which makes his autistic super-sensitive skin even more sensitive but also makes his feet even less likely to fit comfortably into his shoes. So he's been walking on the backs of his nice slip-on Clarks brogues rather than putting them on properly in the house, which wrecks them and also leads to things like him nearly falling at the top of the stairs. I said "They make shoes that protect the bottoms of your feet and don't cover the tops, they're called sandals." It was a revelation for him. The sandals seem to be working out; I'm really glad of that.

Proud of Andrew. He's a candidate in our area for upcoming local city council elections so he got invited to a hustings tonight.

He did a totally badass job of putting forward what seem like basic points but that are mostly missing from partisan politics: no platform for fascists, freedom of movement is a good thing, we have costed plans to make the city better in a manifesto called "Not Putting Up with This Shit Anymore."

In previous years there'd been shouting and nastiness from activists in another party so Andrew was dreading the hustings but he came away amazed at how much nicer this was -- and that was with a few troublemakers in the corner near me who shouted over people and ranted at any opportunity.

Andrew got lots of applause, the room was friendly, he might've even won us a vote or two.

It's hard for him to do stuff like this because autism but I think that also makes him good at it: like Greta Thunberg says, autism "makes me see things from outside the box. I don’t easily fall for lies, I can see through things." The article goes on to say "The result of her simplistic approach, fuelled by her condition, is that she has presented this issue with more clarity and competence." And -- while I'm not happy about the word "simplistic" here, I know what the writer means, I just wish he could've used a less negative-sounding word -- I've always thought this is true of Andrew as well.

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Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness

They say I got brains

[347/365] Holt

[221/365] nothing more we need to do

[328/366] vacciiiine

[275/366] the Brothers Larry

[240/366] bleh

[183/366] smarter than the average

[158/366] food

[154/366] Mount Rushmore

[94/366] a chance to make it good somehow

[93/366] being loved by someone autistic

[80/366]

[352/365] MAN -> AMS -> MSP

[322/365] cold

[311/365] threats

[279/365] extemely normal

[196/365] baronx

168/365

[156/365] Adventures in Shopping

[115/365] hustings

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August 2025

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