I sent this to my dad... how do you think he'll react? :)

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My father wrote to me:

Hi Kate,
I'm writing this from my van on a H.P.1220 notebook.
The built in wireless router adapter is hitching a ride on someones ISP.
I war drive to find unsecured networks to use and get free internet this way.
Write me soon.

Daddy.


Since he seemed happy, not irritated or depressed or hostile in any other way, I replied.




Hey; a lot is going on with me right now. I went onto a site called wrongplanet.net (which I've been on basically all the time for a month) and I'm closer to some people there than I was to a lot of the people in the Myst community that I talked to for a year and a half! And we were really close, so that's saying something. We're planning on starting communes around the world, a school from preschool thru university for people like us, and for now, me and a few friends are going to live in an apartment together. I didn't tell my mother this yet, but I asked my shrink to give me a letter saying that for mental health reasons I need to be away from my mother (I can't just go to SS because they know I have a mother and if they call her and ask her if she kicked me out she'll say no, because that would make her look bad. Anyway, I'm taking it to Social Services tomorrow and they'll find me an apartment in about 4 weeks at the most, and then I'll know my friends even better and we can meet somewhere like in front of the police station, talk in groups of 2 for a while rotating partners until each individual person has felt all the others out individually, then we can exchange picture ID cards, write down each other's full names, go out and do stuff and then I can take them all back home with me!

We plan to work for a while, buy some trailers and some land, then live in the trailers while going to school or working or whatever and take them out to camp on the land in the summer.


I'm sorry, but I won't commit to studying the same thing for 2 or 4 years! I'm too eclectic for anything like that. I want to take a whole bunch of different courses and learn a whole bunch of different skills. I want to take Psychology 101, first aid and CPR, dealing with difficult people, forensic science, public peaking, police procedures, teaching kids with special needs, and a bunch of other stuff. These are all really short courses. You may think I'm being silly or stupid or ridiculous, but it isn't. I can get this job in this, then get a job in that when I get tired of this, and so on.


One of my friends from Wrongplanet.net is Christiaan Duckworth, aka MADDuck. He lives in Texas. He likes MAD magazine, playing video games, watches some TV, listens to music, doesn't have a life, works in an office for $100 US per day, was in the US Army since he was 17 but was medically discharged after he broke his legs in a parachute accident and they're still not 100%. He was in the Army for several years, now he's 35. He had a wife but divorced after she cheated on him. He has a friend he hasn't talked to in a while, he volunteers at the veteran's hospital and goes to every single execution protest at the death house! He wants to come up to Canada because he's being pushed out of his job, hates Bush, hates everything about America, lives in a 1-bedroom apartmetn in the 'hood and twice had his cable line stolen. He wants to buy a SUV, pile in all his stuff (his DVD library, his vintage comic books and other stuff), take his cats in the van with him and come up here. He's talking to an immigration lawyer right now. He was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome and clinical depression just like me.


Another one of my friends from Wrongplanet.net is Rich, aka username88. He was born in March 1988, 2 months after me, lives in Cape Cod with his adoptive parents and older sister (his younger sister is in a mental institution after a drug-related breakdown) and he also knows his biological family though not that well... all of them-- parents and 2 or 3 siblings-- have Asperger's Syndrome, according to him.

Okay, so me and Rich are sort of happy. I think I found a woman for Christiaan to hook up with too, and then they can all come up here along with at least 2 more people! Peter (aka Kilroy), another 19-year-old Canadian from WP, also wants to come if he can get Sandra from Florida (Sandra3 on the site) to go with him. They just met recently but he wants it to turn into a close relationship and he thinks there's a good chance it will. All those people were diangosed with AS... I don't think I have it myself anymore if I ever did, but I fit in so well with them still, because I have so much social anxiety and they're not judgemental and they suffer from social anxiety too.


Speaking of syndromes, my shrinks says I have the following: Sensory Processing Disorder (my severe sensory deprivation)-- hje said that one fits me PERFECTLY and he'd never heard of it, I was the one that suggested it to him--, Social Anxiety Disorder, Pervasive Developmental Disorder, and most of all, Major Depressive Disorder. He only mentions labels when I ask; he says he labels people because his superiors want him to, not because he wants to. He said "How about I diagnose you as a human being?" He says my list of disorders is quite a list for one person. I'm a very interesting person. He also says my severe social anxiety qualifies me for Alberta disability benefits. Why not use them while taking courses instead of working my ass off during all my free hours? That's what I'm going to do, sorry if you think I'm a bum or a lowlife.

I wanted to just not talk to you for a long time but since you seem happy I guess that's why I'm writing back.


[My father] wrote:
Hi Kate,
I'm writing this from my van on a H.P.1220 notebook.
The built in wireless router adapter is hitching a ride on someones ISP.
I war drive to find unsecured networks to use and get free internet this way.
Write me soon.

Daddy.

I've never met your father so I don't know for sure. For most fathers that letter would probably be a bombshell though. I don't know if he'll be surprised in a good way or not.

I think the two most likely responses would be along the lines of him being a little surprised but accepting it because it's your decision. The other response is he would react very negatively and freak out.