(Read that title and try to stop your brain singing in Julie Andrew’s voice)
My dear friend Cassie Hart posted this morning about favourite things and asked people to share theirs. It’s been my experience that neurodivergent people love hard; we don’t just like a thing – we make it our entire personality.
I love my furry niece Daisy. Before I met her, I didn’t like dogs. No, that’s not technically true. I didn’t understand dogs. They made loud noises and sudden movements and got all in my personal space.
When Daisy’s family went overseas for several weeks a few years back, she got depressed. I was visiting my mother, who was caring for her, and Daisy came bounding up to me. She knew me! She recognised me! Mum said it was the most animated she’d seen her in days.
This little bundle missed her people. She didn’t know if they were coming back. I understood, so I visited her every day, and since then I have her once a week. When it’s cold, she’ll stay on the couch and wag her tail, rather than meet me at the door, but she’s still just as delighted to see me.
Dogs are easier than humans. You’ll know if they’re unhappy. You’ll know they love you. Now I try to pat every dog I meet (asking their humans if it’s ok first).
I love Taylor Swift. She’s funny. She’s smart. She has a million ideas and the money to execute them. She refuses to be pigeonholed and fights to make things better for everyone. On top of that, her lyrics kill me, she can sing, and she’s gorgeous.
A friend of mine has been obsessed with Taylor Swift for as long as I’ve known him. I decided to lean into my neurodiversity and become obsessed too. When the new recording of 1989 was released, I listened over and over. Then I discovered Folklore. Then Tortured Poets was released. I heard Reputation for the first time when she got her masters back. Who said that was a terrible album? Have they listened to it?
The Life of a Showgirl is another album people love to criticise, but like Reputation, I think time will tell. Taylor is trying new things, fighting for more people, finding more happiness and authenticity. What’s not to love?
And there’s a song for every mood.
I love Jane Austen. Big surprise, huh? If you’re new here, maybe you don’t know that I founded the Jane Austen Society of Aotearoa, New Zealand, that I host a podcast called the Amateur Austenite where I discuss Austen’s novels, that I write my own novels using her characters, themes and plots.
I’ve been obsessed with Jane Austen for 30 years. I love her humour, her talent, her wisdom, her bitchiness. I love that over 200 years after she died, people are still finding new nuances to her work. Every time I read one of her novels, it’s a different experience.
If I were to “prescribe” the things I love to Cassie (or anyone), here is my advice:
- You can’t have Daisy. Sorry. But pat a dog. Cassie has two dogs, who I know she loves walking and cuddling.
- If you need to be uplifted, listen to Opalite. If you need a cry, listen to All Too Well, the ten minute version.
- For ridiculousness, read anything from Jane Austen’s juvenilia. If you like a villain protagonist, read Lady Susan. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies might be more Cassie’s type of book, or Northanger Abbey, which makes fun of the tropes in horrors or thrillers.