This is a big day for me -- the publication date of my book "Parallel Play" (Doubleday) and my first attempt at writing a blog. I have a lot of friends who have been doing this for years -- the music critic Alex Ross at therestisnoise.com, the omniverous Terry Teachout at terryteachout.com, and my new friend, the brilliant and generous John Elder Robison at JohnRobison.com -- but I have always resisted. I type so damned much already and my hands hurt from it (some twinges of peripheral neuropathy); moreover, I feel boring and self-indulgent. But once you've written a memoir, you can hardly claim you want to keep your life private. So here we go.
It is my hope that "Parallel Play" will be helpful to some readers. I got a lot of terrific feedback for the original magazine article, which ran in the New Yorker in 2007, and that inspired me to go on a bit.
Like a lot of Aspies, I live with a combination of impending panic, insatiable curiosity and welling laughter, all of which I try to balance out the best I can. Some days are better than others.
I have been fortunate to find a job -- I'm a professor of journalism and music at the University of Southern California -- that fulfills me and suits my somewhat reclusive nature. I like my colleagues enormously and my students are bright and interesting and much nicer than my generation was.
Are you asleep yet?
Right now I'm looking forward to returning to my hometown of Storrs, Connecticut, where I will be speaking Sept. 16 at 6:30 at the UConn Coop. I know that I will see a lot of people I love and I am always glad to be back on familiar territory. In August, I visited the house I lived in back in 1958-1960 -- 531 Fairview Circle in Ypsilanti, Michigan. I still have some memories of the place, although we left when I was five. There are times when I feel that I never left Storrs. I will wake up in the morning wondering about where I might have left something and it will occur to me that if this was 1972, the item I'm looking for would be in the top right hand drawer of my bureau. All I need is what Mr. Peabody used to call a "way back" machine and I can go back fetch it and my life will be better.
Right now I'd better prepare for class. I'm also finishing up a book on Carnegie Hall and that is taking up a good bit of my time. But I'll be back soon, and see if I can get comfortable in this brave new medium. Till then, I wish you well.
Tim
"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle..."
Atttibuted to Philo of Alexandria
