John Wayne Cleaver: Far Away, So Close!

   These John Cleaver books just keep getting better and better. Mr Monster surpassed I am Not a Serial Killer, no mean feat, and I finished up I Don't Want to Kill You just an hour or so ago, and it surpassed even that. The district library has The Devil's Only Friend, as well, but I only checked out the one book when I went last, because I'd totally forgotten how much of a page-turner Dan Wells books can be. And I'm going to have to wait till Tuesday, with Memorial Day weekend, man oh man...

   John Wayne Cleaver. So alien, so familiar. As a sociopath (or, as a minor, not a full technical sociopath yet rather a teenager with, antipersonality, dissocial, order) John has theory of mind, but lacks empathy. Nothing's the same, yet everything's the same; it's the reverse of how it works with (some) ASDs. John has no difficulty reading people's faces, looking into people's eyes when he's having a conversation with them comes as naturally as a native tongue. And he has no empathy, no system of morality regarding other's emotions. But he still has to fake it in society. He's still driven by compulsions that others couldn't possibly understand, occasionally even defined by them. And he still finds it in himself to struggle against them.

   His voice must be alien in different ways, to a neurotypical, I realize, but, I kind of like it where I'm sitting, getting a full effect of both the alien and the uncomfortably close-to-home. I cried many times, reading I Don't Want to Kill You, unbidden tears, tears without weeping, and not even on the particularly emotional highs/lows. When John decided to open himself up to Marci, even when there was a lot that he left out, it was unspeakably moving.

   We're only ever ourselves. This kind of thing is the closest we can come to each other. To know how we fit or don't. Not just "this kind of thing" John Wayne Cleaver's voice, but the way I'm talking about it here- I talk about, having to fake it in society, but when does the mask become the face, and since we're only ever ourselves was it a mask to begin with, or was it my real face which I'd always been told was a mask?

Kind of this, again, but maybe I should explore that idea more specifically in a different similar new piece.

   Diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, but it's so friggin' mild as to be invisible, and if it's invisible what's even the point of the diagnosis, is it even real? I really don't have a problem reading faces, or recognizing parallel lines of thought, or looking into eyes. I kind of slouch, which sucks, but is that even a symptom of any mental disorder? I talk about how familiar John Cleaver's voice is, but, yeah alright it's pretty familiar. Though I've got no idea if maybe, everyone's the exact way.