The hardest part of moving? Learning a new grocery store, of course... aka the wonderful world of Asperger's meltdowns...

There’s something wonderful about being exhausted. Not emotionally, of course, like I was for years living out in Portland, OR, but physically. Like having spent the past couple weeks going out every single night and meeting and talking with people to try and figure out this new city (Charlotte, for those not keeping score at home). For an Aspergerian man such as myself, meeting, talking to and constantly being around people is tiring. It’s hard to do. It’s work. But, it’s also invigorating to have new people to meet, new places to see, new weird, half-extremely-gentrified neighborhoods (looking at you, NODA) to explore and new music to hear. It’s fun to feel like my life has a purpose again, like I have something to wake up for each day. Sure, I’ve been playing music the past couple years (and making AWESOME MUSIC VIDEOS), but not aggressively and constantly like I’m used to. It’s weird to go a month without performing, which I did many times over recently. It doesn’t feel right. I didn’t feel like me. It was weird to feel like I was playing someone else but I was. Bradley Wik doesn’t sit at home on a Friday night. Friday night is for the drinkers, after all. But, I let my Aspergian impulses get the better of me. I was so burned out and angry at the Portland, OR music scene (and for good reason, it’s terrible…) that I had relegated myself to writing and doing home recordings. I have 2 albums that I will be releasing next year plus the remnants for an awesome B-sides EP or the beginnings of another album. I’ve delved deep into learning about and exploring my Asperger’s. One of the albums is explicitly for those who suffer from it or those wanting to hear what it feels/sounds like to live with it. That album also dabbles with my Meniere’s disease (an inner ear disorder affecting hearing, balance and vision), sprinkling in some wonderfully depressing sounds to help articulate Meniere’s for those lucky enough to not know what it’s like. As you can probably infer, it’s an upbeat, poppy record… Oh wait…

But, if you did actually think that, you’re in luck! The other album is what has been lovingly referred to by the few who have heard demos as Folk-Synth-Space-Pop. Which seems to be pretty damn accurate if I say so myself. It’s not a genre yet, but I’m sure I’ll make it one. So I have that going for me, which is nice…

But, what I really wanted to discuss this evening is one of the hardest things for an Asperger’s to do: go to a new grocery store.

Going to the grocery store is a weekly or bi-weekly (as in twice a week, not once every two weeks. Why didn’t they come up with a different prefix for those two? English is fucking stupid sometimes…) event that becomes routine; very routine if you have Asperger’s (at least for me, not speaking for everyone here). Routines are good for me. They ground me and give me purpose. I love doing things spontaneously, so long as I planned on being spontaneous first. There are so many nights I’ve ruined because we didn’t do what we had planned to do (even if I didn’t really want to do it to begin with). I get grumpy, aggravated, short with those around me and just generally difficult to be around. I may actually think the new plan is better, but I hate when my expectations are changed without warning, and without my control. I’ll change plans regularly but if someone else does, god forbid. So, needless to say, going to the grocery store needs to be simple, on my schedule and without surprises.

Which, having moved to a new city with new grocery stores (still owned by Kroger, but still), I had to, and still am adjusting to. Let me explain how infuriating, confusing, frustrating and debilitating this can be. When I lived in Portland, I went to Trader Joes. Every week, almost always on Friday, I would go. I had the area of the lot I liked to park in. I had my route through the store mapped out. I had my staples and variables and their locations memorized for ease of purchasing. I bought almost the exact same things every single week: sourdough bread, blueberries, broccoli, avocados, almond milk (damn you, lactose-intolerance!), eggs, tortilla chips, chicken tenderloins (for making Bradley’s famous fried chicken), ground beef, ground turkey, boneless salmon, turkey cold cuts, Trader Joes habanero salsa, mayonnaise, polenta (until I got food poisoning from eating it), rice and Louis Jadot Beaujolais; in that order. Fucking literally. Go to the Trader Joe’s on SE 39th just off Holgate and you’ll see the route I took based on that food. In the doors, down the right into produce, to the back wall with the meat, skipping the middle aisles and hitting the last aisle before the wine section. Occasionally, I would venture out and buy some cashews or some shit, but that was it. Every week or every other week when stuff would back up and I’d have extra. But that’s what I bought and ate for years. I like it. I knew where everything was and how much it cost and what meals I could make with it. Things were good. But there’s no Trader Joes near my house anymore… So…

Now, it’s Harris Teeter. It’s right across the street, which is convenient, but it’s different. Different brands, different layout, different prices, different everything. At first, I was excited to find new foods and try new things. Two weeks ago I got so frustrated I left my cart and walked out. I just wanted my stuff. You know, the same stuff I had eaten for years. But, here it was hard to find and it more expensive and there wasn’t salmon and I couldn’t find the almond milk (damn you, back corner!). I don’t even remember what exactly triggered it but I had a mini-meltdown (not a full-blown, hard-to-breathe, pulling my hair and squeezing my head with my fists meltdown). I just remember wandering and looking and trying to read the stupid aisle signs to figure out what I was missing, going from one side all the way to the other, not finding what I wanted and becoming increasingly hostile. There wasn’t one thing that set me off but I started shaking and sweating, was cursing up a storm to myself and wanted to scream. I wanted to trash the frozen food aisle which I ended up in somehow and punch someone in the face. I was so mad I almost put my fist through a glass door by the ice cream. Instead, I just left. I had a frozen pizza at home so I could make that and try again tomorrow when I was in a better headspace. The whole episode feels like an oncoming storm. At first the clouds roll in, the wind picks up and a light rain starts to fall. Soon, the sky turns black, the wind becomes loud and violent, my eyes fire the lightning bolts and the thunder echoes so loudly in my brain that I need to do something to release it. Sounds become garbled. My vision narrows. I struggle to unclench my jaw. Words fail me. My face turns red and my breathe becomes labored. My brain feels like it has swelled up and won’t fit into my skull, instead pushing at my skull to release its constraints and let it out. Suddenly, my day is ruined.

But, I also I did the same thing at Target. And most Targets are the same anyways, but I was just trying to find breathe right strips (damn you, sleep apnea!) and a decent toilet plunger (damn you, low flow toilet!). I tried the bathroom area, the kitchen area and everywhere in between. Turns out plungers are in the pharmacy section towards the end, just past the men’s shaving stuff by laundry soap. I still don’t know where the fuck breathe right strips are. I haven’t gone back to that Target since. Fuck it. Don’t put shit in logical places then fuck you. There’s a million other places to buy household shit. So, fuck off Target. We’re through…

On the flipside, I’m so fucking pumped to be in Charlotte, NC. Everyday, I wake up and feel energized. I feel new. It feels good to feel new. Except when it impedes my grocery shopping…

(dictated but not read)