What to do with friends ?

Warning: almost spoiler free commentary of « Shang-Chi and the legend of the ten rings » further along, with a picture of an important (I think) character.

The theme for these four weeks is friendship, and Mr Risson and his friends are going to share some things they enjoy doing together.

 

Drink a cup of tea together

Magnus (on the right) and Thorsten love drinking a cup of tea whilst chatting.
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A hedgehog in the engine room

Here’s the second part of the story of little Hedgehog, now an adult. If you’ve missed the first part, you can find it here.

 

One day, a worker from the engine room fell ill and Hedgehog was offered his post temporarily.
It was a bit tiring, one had to fill the wood-fired boilers so they wouldn’t go out, but he agreed.
He was going to fly!

A dirigible is a bit like a ship except, instead of the sails, there are some big balloons that are filled up by steam coming out of big funnels.
That steam comes from the boilers in which wood is being burnt.
It’s not very practical, but at that time they didn’t know how to do differently.

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Long distance friendships

There are several situations that can lead to a friendship moving to letters, or more recently to e-mails: in childhood, when meeting friends on holidays, at summer camps or when they move town ; later on, with friends met at university, or even friends from work.
There is also the situation of the pen pal, where the relationship starts by letters and can lead to an enduring friendship, sometimes without people ever meeting face to face.

Then there is the case of social networks.

Some people say friends met on them are not real friends yet the principle seems, to me anyway, very close to that of the pen pal: someone with whom one bonds over a common interest, whatever it may be.

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« The Forty Rules of Love » by Elif Shafak

My summer read to end this month under the theme of summer and back to school.

 

My mother and a friend both recommended this book and I thank them for it.

I have read a criticism that Elif Shafak separates, or moves away, Sufi mysticism from Islam in this book, and that the image of it being put forward is not (quite) the truth of this philosophy.
I couldn’t tell, but I prefer to let you know.
This book might not be an introduction to Sufi mysticism.

What it is, though, is an introduction to Love, or a reminder.
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Social networks, community and autism

I made a planning of future publications, mostly to know when which type is coming out, and I’m already making exceptions. Typical!

 

I recently made an attempt at coming back on social media, partly with the idea of getting this blog a bit better known and partly because I would like to exchange with people more.
My stay was brief both on Twitter and on Instagram and it will stay like this for a while more. There is still as much noise, which isn’t a surprise, but even trying to downsize my following triggered some anxiety.

I have to manually post on Instagram to share the articles so I will most likely stop by once a week, but I don’t take time yet to look at what’s posted and I still haven’t read my direct messages.

I still managed to land on a publication on Instagram, whilst going through my feed looking at accounts I want to unfollow, which talked about autism, social media and the community that can be found there.
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The little hedgehog who wanted to pilot a dirigible

A little tale, told in three parts, of the beginning of the fulfilment of a dream. The next instalment will be next month, but in the mean time you can find my other fictions under the tag « Tales« . (I need to tidy up a bit more the categories and articles.)

 

Once upon a time, there was a little hedgehog who wanted to fly.
When people asked him what he wanted to do when he grew up, he always replied:

“Piloting a dirigible!”

And everyone answered:

“But hedgehogs don’t fly!”*

To which he answered:

“I’ll be the first one, then.”

Little Hedgehog lived in the countryside. There were fields and a lot of trees. It was really green, but what attracted his eyes was the blue of the sky.

“One day, I’ll be up there”, he thought.

Once old enough to work, he left his family and went to Paris. All the main companies flying dirigibles were there and little Hedgehog, now an adult, was determined to make his dream come true.
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Summer review and “back to school”

I have the intention to post more seriously and regularly (no promises), and I have a regular little project based on photos to share.
I’ve also changed the motto of the site to make it more fitting: Fantasy & Differences.

 

In May, I published « the summer of hope » which talked about my hope to be able to keep access to my bubble of calm this summer regardless of the social events planned.
I am very happy to say that I succeeded.
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Veganism and a long term love story with cheese are incompatible

It’s true that autistic people have a special, even complicated, relationship with food. We are sensitive to tastes, textures, colours to a point that affects what we eat and how. We can eat the same food for days (months) at a time because that’s the one thing we like and can eat at that time.
That does play a role in my difficulty to become a vegan, but the difficulty goes beyond that.
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The summer of hope

I read an article in The Guardian recently that was talking about what people had in mind for and hoped to do this summer and apparently it’s a lot about sex and meeting new (vaccinated) people. Or maybe that’s because the article was written with that angle.

In my case it’s « the same as usual », since last summer wasn’t much different from the previous ones.
Borders should be open and family friends should be able to come around so we’ll get to eat together, 6 (and 7) around the table.
My partner and I will spend our traditional 10 days in July together and celebrate our 6 years anniversary – we’re not sure whether it’ll involve (grounded) planes again or not.
There’ll be a couple of birthdays, so a couple of meals – we’re French (and Swiss) after all.
Hopefully there’ll be waves and I’ll get to jump in them. I am not a major fan of going to the beach but I love waves.
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