LITMIR.BIZ

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      My first job upon returning to Aunt Rose was my worst. I was hired by the collections department of a magazine in lower Westchester County. The work was borderline scummy—extracting money from struggling start-up businesses who could not afford to pay their advertising bill. The owner of the magazine treated everyone very unkindly. She ranted and raved and made demands that could not be satisfied. She spread stress around like butter on toast. No one lasted very long in that office; the turnover was phenomenal. She hounded people until they quit. I gritted my teeth and hung on for a year and a half, until I too could take it no more.

      Two weeks after I left the magazine, I ran into a local attorney who said he might have some work for me. He did not mean putting me on the payroll or giving me a regular job. He wanted me to help him on a per diem basis, whenever his workload became overwhelming. This finally opened my eyes. I did not have to squeeze myself into that “windowless cubicle,” corporate-type job after all. I had marketable skills. I could freelance. In every small town, there is at least one solo practitioner who has neither the money nor the inclination to hire another full-time employee but who will invariably have special projects from time to time for which assistance is required: filing papers, serving process, answering the court calendar, conducting legal research (my specialty), and drafting briefs. I even helped one attorney supplement a legal treatise. I had a business card printed up, and, before I knew it, my phone was ringing.

      Now, this was not “career success” in any conventional sense of the word. My income was erratic and modest at best. I did not have benefits. However, at long last, I was being productive, exercising my skills, and performing tasks at which I excelled, while avoiding undue stress and office politics. I had found my own comfort level, midway between the prestigious, high-salaried law-firm job that my father desired for me and the “no-good lazy bum” that I had been on the road to becoming.

       A Strong Attachment to Familiar Places

      I did not yet know what was “wrong” with me, but over the years, I came to recognize and accept certain autistic traits in myself, chief among which was a strong attachment to familiar people, places, and things. I felt safe and secure living back in my hometown, even though my childhood friends had long since grown up and moved away. Walking down streets on which I had biked as a child and shopping at stores where I had shopped for years kept my inner chaos at bay. When people asked me why I did not go back to the city to look for a “real” job, I replied that I was needed here to care for an elderly aunt. In truth, it was the other way around. My elderly aunt was taking care of me.

      I supplemented my income with colorful, quirky part-time jobs. I was a night clerk in a motel. I handed out coupons in the supermarket. I worked on village elections. My all-time favorite job, prior to my present one at Kykuit, was as a photographer’s assistant and order taker for a studio that photographed high-school proms. For 20 years, until the company folded, I worked at the proms from April to June. For those 20 years, I lived for the spring. This job provided me with the opportunity to dress up and visit places I otherwise would never have seen—country clubs, fancy hotels, and catering houses—while listening to music and watching the young folks in their gowns and tuxedos. Best of all, it had social benefits. I met people, and I fraternized with other crew members.

       Work Filled a Void in My Heart

      Work filled the void in my heart where a social life should have been. After moving away from Alexis, I never made any close friends, with one exception. One of the small advertisers that I had to visit for the magazine collections department was a young attorney who had recently opened her own law office. We got to talking, and we ended up working together for more than 12 years. She acted as a public defender—the court would assign her as appellate counsel for persons convicted of crimes, and I did the legal research and drafted the briefs.

      Attempting to free someone from jail seemed a worthwhile goal. I liked the moral purpose of it. The attorney and I went to visit our clients in prison, and we had “power lunches” at a diner, where we would spread the case record out on the table and hash it out over a burger. We also got together socially on occasion, visiting each other’s homes or going shopping or to the beach. Eventually, she moved on with her career, and as a result, I found my present job at Kykuit.

       RELATIONSHIPS

       My Relationships with Men

      My relationships with the opposite sex have been strange to say the least. I rarely dated in the conventional sense. Instead, in my younger days, I often engaged in an activity that today would be called “stalking.” While I truly intended no harm, I experienced unbearable loneliness, and if a handsome young man appeared on the periphery of my solitary life, my better judgment deserted me. I was drawn toward men who seemed to possess all the attributes I would have wished for myself—charm and popularity or a talent for singing, acting, or athletic ability. There were men who asked me out and tried to form relationships with me, but they held no attraction for me at all. I would rather chase what I could not capture. I only wanted what was unattainable and scorned every man that was actually available to me.

       Learning about Asperger’s

      It has always been a mystery to me why I engaged in “stalking” types of behavior. I have analyzed it as I would a legal problem and still come up empty-handed. It even puzzled my therapist. She suggested that I write to Dr Tony Attwood, a world-famous expert in Asperger’s syndrome. I did, and he actually wrote back. Dr Attwood replied that many Aspies engage in stalking-type activity and likened it to a special interest. Another person becomes the object of fascination, rather than an academic subject or a set of facts.

      About 12 years ago, one of the attorneys I worked for sent me to the library to research Asperger’s syndrome. He represented a local couple whose 18-year-old son had received a diagnosis of Asperger’s. The attorney wanted to know if an adult Aspie would be considered legally competent to handle his own affairs. I asked my boss what Asperger’s was. He said, “It’s a little bit autistic.” I had not read much before I realized that all the symptoms described in the literature applied to me. At that time, however, it was just a label. It was good to know that there were people like myself out there, but the information seemed of no practical value. It was just another obscure fact I had collected. After all, I was already over 40, and I thought any opportunity for a better life was far behind me.

       Finding My Tour Guide Job

      Then, in the winter of 2002, I came across an ad for part-time tour guides at Kykuit, the Rockefeller Estate. I had grown up when Nelson Rockefeller was the governor of New York, and, history and politics being special interests of mine, I knew something about the Rockefeller family. However, Nelson had died some years before, and since then I had not given him a passing thought. I did need a new part-time job, though. My attorney-friend in Connecticut was closing her practice, and that source of income had to be replaced. Kykuit sounded like fun—just the kind of quirky, offbeat work that Aunt Rose had wisely suggested I might be most suited for (like my job working at the proms, which I loved). I sent in my application, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me in my adult life.

      To this day, I wonder how I passed the screening process. I persuaded one of my attorney-bosses to write me a recommendation, and I was hired. Everyone I work with at Kykuit is ten times more poised, graceful, self-assured, and sophisticated than I could ever be. That was the glamour that drew me to them. I wanted to be one of them.

       I Love My Tour Guide Job and Learned How to Keep It

      I loved the job from the start. The subject matter was right up my alley. Soon I could spout off the names and dates of Chinese dynasties and modern art movements as though it was second nature. The site itself was beautiful, wondrous, and a natural haven for a troubled mind. That is why the first John D. Rockefeller built it—as a refuge from a world that had provided him with amazing financial success but hated him for it. Best of all, the other guides did not automatically shun me or call me ‘weird.’ Many of them were older women, and when my mother died, they comforted me and got me through it. The job provided me with the structure I

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