The Journal of Best Practices: A Memoir of Marriage, Asperger Syndrome, and One Man’s Quest to Be a Better Husband

• 

 

The Journal of Best Practices: A Memoir of Marriage, Asperger Syndrome, and One Man’s Quest to Be a Better Husband
by David Finch. Scribner, 2012

Asperger syndrome is not funny—or at least it is not supposed to be. People with the disorder, which falls on the autism spectrum, lack social intuition and may fixate on obscure topics. For many, the condition can be isolating. Yet in The Journal of Best Practices, David Finch finds hilarity in the disorder, all the better for his fellow Aspies, the self-anointed nickname for members of the Asperger community, and the rest of us, who gain an entertaining lesson on what their lives can be like.

Finch is 30 years old when he is diagnosed with the syndrome. Although his wife, Kristen, accepts Finch as is, for him the diagnosis is both a revelation and a road map to mending their marriage, a union he believes had unraveled because of his Aspie quirks.

Finch tries to overcome those tendencies—his self-involvement, obsessions, inflexibility and lack of empathy—by developing a guide to help him become if not “neurotypical,” at least easier to live with. A behavioral instruction manual appeals to Finch, who thrives on order. One of his many epiphanies comes after a workplace performance review, when he goes home and declares to Kristen that he wants one from her, too.

That may sound like a strategy sure to backfire, but Finch’s efforts to understand when to use his “best practices” and when to just be himself is part of how he learns to manage Asperger syndrome. Empathy remains Finch’s Holy Grail, and his struggle to master it is an ongoing source of frustration for him.

Despite this lack of social intelligence, Finch understands how funny his earnest attempts at empathy come off to neurotypicals. He puts his Aspie obsessiveness to admirable use, diving into reality television, couples massages and Cosmopolitan magazine to try to “get” his wife. He studies—and parrots—talk-show hosts to learn how to converse, and he adopts a persona to suit every occasion: Business Man for the office and Outgoing Man for social encounters.

That Finch ultimately discards these amazing compensatory skills is a testament to the happy medium he discovers. Forget a scarlet A for Asperger. Finch has earned an A for effort, and he should wear it proudly.

Little People on the Street

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why Walking through a Doorway Makes You Forget

I love this article. Makes me feel much better about going upstairs and forgetting why I was there.  Just today, my husband walked from the living room to the kitchen (10 steps) and forgot why he moved. I know I am not alone.

Scientists measure the “doorway effect,” and it supports a novel model of human memory

By Charles B. Brenner and Jeffrey M. Zacks  | December 13, 2011 | 30

Turn the handle and leave the past behind.Image: iStock/Robert Vautour

The French poet Paul Valéry once said, “The purpose of psychology is to give us a completely different idea of the things we know best.”  In that spirit, consider a situation many of us will find we know too well:  You’re sitting at your desk in your office at home. Digging for something under a stack of papers, you find a dirty coffee mug that’s been there so long it’s eligible forcarbon dating.  Better wash it. You pick up the mug, walk out the door of your office, and head toward the kitchen.  By the time you get to the kitchen, though, you’ve forgotten why you stood up in the first place, and you wander back to your office, feeling a little confused—until you look down and see the cup.

So there’s the thing we know best:  The common and annoying experience of arriving somewhere only to realize you’ve forgottenwhat you went there to do.  We all know why such forgetting happens: we didn’t pay enough attention, or too much time passed, or it just wasn’t important enough.  But a “completely different” idea comes from a team of researchers at the University of Notre Dame.  The first part of their paper’s title sums it up:  “Walking through doorways causes forgetting.”

Gabriel Radvansky, Sabine Krawietz and Andrea Tamplin seated participants in front of a computer screen running a video game in which they could move around using the arrow keys.  In the game, they would walk up to a table with a colored geometric solid sitting on it. Their task was to pick up the object and take it to another table, where they would put the object down and pick up a new one. Whichever object they were currently carrying was invisible to them, as if it were in a virtual backpack.

Sometimes, to get to the next object the participant simply walked across the room. Other times, they had to walk the same distance, but through a door into a new room. From time to time, the researchers gave them a pop quiz, asking which object was currently in their backpack.  The quiz was timed so that when they walked through a doorway, they were tested right afterwards.  As the title said, walking through doorways caused forgetting: Their responses were both slower and less accurate when they’d walked through a doorway into a new room than when they’d walked the same distance within the same room.

This “doorway effect” appears to be quite general.  It doesn’t seem to matter, for instance, whether the virtual environments are displayed on a 66” flat screen or a 17” CRT.  In one study, Radvansky and his colleagues tested the doorway effect in real rooms in their lab.  Participants traversed a real-world environment, carrying physical objects and setting them down on actual tables.  The objects were carried in shoeboxes to keep participants from peeking during the quizzes, but otherwise the procedure was more or less the same as in virtual reality.  Sure enough, the doorway effect revealed itself:  Memory was worse after passing through a doorway than after walking the same distance within a single room.

Is it walking through the doorway that causes the forgetting, or is it that remembering is easier in the room in which you originally took in the information?  Psychologists have known for a while that memory works best when the context during testing matches the context during learning; this is an example of what is called the encoding specificity principle.  But the third experiment of the Notre Dame study shows that it’s not just the mismatching context driving the doorway effect.  In this experiment (run in VR), participants sometimes picked up an object, walked through a door, and then walked through a second door that brought them either to a new room or back to the first room.  If matching the context is what counts, then walking back to the old room should boost recall. It did not.

MORE

 

Glenlivit, Surrey, and Mr. Darcy

About 15 years ago I was on an Executive Course in England.  It was held at an old Country manor, surrounded by beauitful rolling hills and heards of sheep.  Just like Pride and Prejudice, always a favorite.  My first day there, I walked up the hill and wondered how Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy every graciously made it on their walks.  Sheep poop was everywhere. There went that fantasy.  However, on the last day, late evening, I sat with a couple of friends in the manor hall and sipped on Glenlivit Scotch and smoked a cigar.  My first real Scotch and my one and only cigar.  Much more enjoyable than the walk.  No wonder the men in all those English romances loved to gather after supper.

 

Here it is:

The Glenlivet Scotch 18 Years Old 750ML

The Glenlivet Scotch 18 Years Old 750ML

Product Description

Tasting notes

Rich amber color. Warm caramel on toast aromas witha nice layer of chocolate nuts and leather follow through to a dry-yet-fruity medium-full body with rich caramelized nut, chocolate covered cherry, and brown spice accents. Finishes with a sensual, and vivacious fade with an notes of clay-like earth and hay. A well styled sipper

What Kind of Fish are You?

By Kalliopi Monoyios | November 21, 2011 | Share  Email I can’t say for certain whether New York based photographer Ted Sabarese had science or evolution in mind when he conceived of this series. But I’m almost glad he never responded to my follow-up questions about his inspiration behind these. Part of the fun of art is its mirror-like quality: everyone sees […]

Jokes from Father Jim

Jokes from Father Jim.

Any Dog Surfers in OBX?

Surfer Dogs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

May Food Holidays

May is verdant, May is exciting, May is filled with fun food holidays:

National Asparagus Month National Barbecue Month National Chocolate Custard Month National Egg Month National Gazpacho Aficionado Month

National Hamburger Month National Mediterranean Diet Month National Salad Month National Salsa Month National Strawberry Month

Other foods to honor: National Raisin Week and National Herb Week are the first week of the month, National Hamburger Week the second week of the month, International Pickles Week the third week, and both National Frozen Yogurt Week and American Beer Week concurrently in the fourth week.

And it should come as no surprise that National Barbecue Day and National Hamburger/Cheeseburger Day both fall on Memorial Day Monday.

Plus, you can celebrate:

• May 1: National Chocolate Parfait Day
• May 2: National Truffles Day
• May 3: National Raspberry Tart Day
• May 4: National Homebrew Day
• May 4: National Orange Juice Day
• May 4: National Candied Orange Peel Day
• May 5: National Chocolate Custard Day
• May 5: Cinco de Mayo
• May 5: National Hoagie Day
• May 6: National Crêpes Suzette Day
• May 6: International No Diet Day
• May 7: National Roast Leg of Lamb Day
• May 8 National Coconut Cream Pie Day
• May 8: National Empanada Day
• May 8: Have A Coke Day
• May 9: National Butterscotch Brownie Day

May 10: National Shrimp Day May 11: Eat What You Want Day May 12: National Nutty Fudge Day May 13 National Apple Pie Day May 13: National Fruit Cocktail Day May 14: National Buttermilk Biscuit Day May 15: National Chocolate Chip Day May 16: National Coquilles St. Jacques Day May 17: National Cherry Cobbler Day

May 10 is National Shrimp Day! We served these tasty crustaceans with LuLu’s Saffron Aioli. Photo by Ryan Pike.

• May 18: National Cheese Soufflé Day
• May 19: National Devil’s Food Cake Day

• May 20: National Quiche Lorraine Day
• May 20: Pick Strawberries Day
• May 21: National Strawberries and Cream Day
• May 22: National Vanilla Pudding Day
• May 23: National Taffy Day
• May 24: National Escargot Day
• May 25: National Brown-Bag-It Day
• May 25: National Wine Day
• May 26: National Blueberry Cheesecake Day

End the month by celebrating National Macaroon Day. These lovelies are from Mad Mac Macaroons, a NIBBLE Top Pick Of The Week.

May 26: National Cherry Dessert Day May 27: National Grape Popsicle Day May 28: National Brisket Day May 29: National Coq Au Vin Day May 30: National Mint Julep Day May 31: National Macaroon Day

It’s May, the lusty month of May

Old enough to remember this?  Where did Richard Burton come from?