The cover person

Who is The Figure?

The Figure is a humanoid being that can form into any shape resembling the human body. The Figure can transform from fat to thin, from clean shaven to scruffy, from young to old, from tall to small. The Figure represents you. It represents whoever that they want to be and who they want to accept. The Figure has no gender because of its transformation to male and female and cannot talk. It is the only one of his kind.

Think of The Figure as a reflection, and I have spent a long time figuring out The Figure and how it can be seen to others other than myself.

It all started off with the same concept idea of space being a metaphor to life like I have mentioned in the first book. Planets are people, being a part of someone’s world, resulting in a population depending on a person’s own viewpoint. The Figure is seen on rare occasions when someone is in their own world by themselves. I can imagine it being someone to talk to without ever...

The pinball machines! For those not so familiar with what a pinball machine is, I’ll do my best to explain. A pinball machine is a table that involves a little metal ball and a pair (or how many there are in the table) of flippers in the table. The object of the game for the pinball machine is to keep the little metal ball from going all the way down on the tilted table. Use the flippers to keep the ball from going all the way down. Pinball machines are all different, all containing different themes and they can be either slow paced or fast paced depending on how the table is tilted. The other object of the game for those who want to become really competitive for glory, the object is to get the high score! Rank up the points and have that metal ball bump into all sorts of cool things!

I used to hate pinball back then. Wasn’t because I wasn’t good at it, but the main reason why was because those tables are so loud and noisy! Think the first arcade experiences...

The television. Next to books, toys, and games, the TV is a neat source of entertainment. The screen can be a gateway to wondrous adventures of any kind. Whether it involves comedy, drama, action, or whatever genre there is, the TV can contain all sorts of really cool stuff!

I have mentioned this before when it comes to video games, and that is that it affects the mind; Same goes for television shows. I was introduced to age appropriate shows that had color and charm. Most of the cartoons I would watch were very old cartoons from the 1920's to the 1960's. Didn't really matter what year the cartoons were, I just enjoyed watching them.

Think television shows that involve color, to me that was very appealing and very helpful. Oftentimes I wouldn't know what's going on just by the characters speaking, I would know what's going on by action. I know that there are shows that have some forms of dialogue, but the action that takes place sort of takes the spotlight, and to me, that's how...

I was the absolute worst in social media, so bad it hurts to think about it. Everything I am offline, I am online, I do not enjoy hiding and pretending I'm something I'm not, but I still had work to do in being social.

Now, I'm enjoying social media all for much different reasons.

Social media to me, is a lot like real life in terms of being social. For me, I have the tendency of speaking from the mind; hard to keep my thoughts to myself, and that ended up hurting me and getting me in trouble. It was bad; the first parts of using social media, way before I started writing a book that is. So I just gave up on it and played video games.

Social media now, I am able to speak from the mind and heart but taken to a much different approach as to finding and discovering things that spark interest and saying something about that in the lines of compliments. In Twitter, I use it for the news. Dairy Queen announcing the return of S'mores Blizzard is news to me! Or when there are new music...

If 'entertainment' is an object that can be held, I imagine it as a balloon.

The idea for entertainment is for it all to bring a person joy; I ponder over the word 'entertainment' because there are many different kinds of entertainment that people find... entertaining. Going to have to slow myself down from saying that word too much in one sentence.

What does it all mean to me? It all fascinates me when I see the many things that relates to the category.

It all turns out that everyone is completely different in entertainment, just like everyone is different when it comes to autism; I'll share my vision in entertainment.

Entertainment to me is welcoming. The best kind of entertainment welcomes the person being exposed to it and want to be a part of whatever goes on.

Example, the circus; the show goes on and you're seeing it all right before your eyes!
A hockey match where players get rough and would do almost whatever it takes to score points.
A carnival that's designed for gay (happy)...

"How does it feel to get your work done?"

"I feel like dancing!"

I love dancing! Been doing it since I was a toddler. Why is it so important?

It's another form of communication! I never knew how to form words when it comes to social interactions, so instead, dancing is one of the things I would do to communicate in a way; A unique way to bond with someone or with other people when there are people to dance with.

One challenge I had was loud music, and there are a lot of loud moments when it comes to dances, learning about people coming together to dance, I challenged myself to handle the noises so I can dance with others! Sure would do just about anything just to spend time with people in my peer group, and the dances was a great example on what I would do to have a good time being with others while doing one of my favorite activities, and that is to dance.

Today, I still enjoy a good dance here and there. Sometimes when I hear good news or anything positive that someone told me, I...

Fly, don't fall.

Traveling from one place to another by plane wasn't always easy at first. Had to train how to get on and off successfully without anything going out of whack, but once I have figured out how to master going on and off the plane, I have started to love planes!

Grown so fascinated with the flying machines since I was in the third grade. I remember at the class, the teacher would hang airplanes on the ceiling and I would enjoy looking at these wonderful inventions for transportation; The wings that spread out like a bird, the speed during flight (because we would even try one of the teacher's toy planes on the field), and just the look of an airplane is so neat!

Back then, I didn't know what planes were when it came to airports. Didn't even know that we were flying in a plane, until I fully discovered that we were up in the air, and I was thinking: "What on Earth is this?" and that was when I became fascinated by it. The noise was one thing that I had to control with...

What is the One World Observatory?

The One World Observatory, also known as the One World Trade Center is the tallest skyscraper in the western hemisphere. The building became the successor to the Twin Towers after they were destroyed. The Observatory is located in New York City, New York. For being the tallest building, it's easy to identify when traveling to New York.

New York. I have always wanted to go to that state ever since I was four years old. I remember Dad talking about New York back then and then one day Mom and I decided to go. Nice time too because of the new building being the One World.

When Mom was married to Dad, Mom would tell me that they used to be up at the Twin Towers; told me that it was almost like being on top of the world! It was an experience for sure being on top of two tall buildings. I am aware about what happened in September 11th, 2001, but I won't get too into that. Though I will say that Dad almost told me what was going on but Mom suggested that...

One of my favorite things to do is watch movies... repeatedly!

Why repeatedly? Wouldn't I get tired of the same old content? Yes and no. The reason why I would watch movies repeatedly is because I enjoy trying to find hidden things here and there down to the tiniest of detail. Not just that part of seeing things on every corner, but also understand hidden messages during the film of choice whether it's supposed to mean this or not.

Movies are fun! A lot of people love to watch a good film every so often for good old entertainment. I have been so fascinated with the film stuff that I decided to look back at the history of film and fully understand what film at the time was back then. Short cartoons on the big screen? That's something I would love to go see! A small group of people working on one cartoon... on the big screen with a large audience! That to me, is something I would love to get into if there's ever a way! Get a team of animators, voice overs, and writers. Doesn't have to...

The sound of silence. Why is silence important when it comes to autism? What can we learn from it?

I will teach you why I tend to stay silent since I was very little.

I never really talked much, and I chose not to form much words for a while. One of the biggest reasons why I prefer not to talk at all was because I never wanted to say anything that was not appropriate to say or to embarrass myself and to others around me. No matter what it is! Even if I was asked a question, I would stay silent not knowing how to respond. Took a very long time up to five years until I was given the confidence to speak more frequently. Words are words now, and I feel like I can say anything that comes to mind; especially when given some very hard questions that may be very sensitive even to me.

I still get pretty silent at times. So much so that I have found myself drawn to people my age that are silent too. There was a time when I was at a design and engineering class, and all the time, I would...