11:27pm January 29, 2015

Kimberly Gerry-Tucker has a book out.

And although I have not finished it, I strongly recommend it to anyone who knows her.

Things I love about Kimberly:

She’s a genuine nonconformist. She doesn’t try not to conform – she’s not an anit-conformist. She just doesn’t conform, and refuses to take any shit for it. Every year around Labor Day she used to defend the MDA Jerry Lewis Telethon in groups of people steeped in the disability rights view of the telethon. I don’t agree with her stance on the Telethon, but I totally admire her for sticking to her viewpoint in the face of such well-researched opposition.
She’s one of those people who has been forced to function beyond her limitations. Like, in our own ways, Draggle, me, AnneC, Donna, and lots of others. It often involves juggling, always barely managing not to drop the ball before the next one comes in, often actually dropping balls, having to start over, falling apart, falling to pieces, but always getting back up again. This is a trait i’ve seen in many autistic people, in many types of autistic people, and I guess I like seeing it, despite the pain, because it’s so familiar to me and my friends.
She’s eccentric without trying to be.
She’s a mime. She feels that when she is dressed as a mime she can be more ‘herself’ than she can when dressing and acting more 'normally’. I think that’s cool and amazing. You can see her mime outfit here. And there’s something about being a mime that just says, “I genuinely don’t care what you think, I’m going to be myself at all costs.”
She’s just Kimberly, and I can’t help but like her even though we have nothing more than a passing and not always positive relationship on email lists.

Her book is out on Kindle. It’s called Under the Banana Moon: A True Story of Living, Loving, Loss, and Asperger’s.

So I strongly recommend this book if it, or the author, sounds interesting to you. I certainly found it interesting to know what was going on in the background at her home during all the time I knew her online. We were never close, but I’ve always respected her.