Blog
Hi, I’m Toeps and I’ve been blogging since 2004. About my adventures, about things I think things about, and about my life as an autistic person. (And between 2012 and 2016 also about the world of models and photography, on my then platform Fashionmilk.com, which you may remember from the top model recaps.)
This blog has brought me many wonderful things: friends and girlfriends, a trip to Disneyland Paris and even a book. These days I mostly write about my life in Japan, where I live.
Coughing Out Loud
“I’ve never had COVID,” I said earlier this year to a friend who canceled our plans because she was down with it for the third or fourth time. “That seems unlikely,” she said. “You’re probably just someone who doesn’t show symptoms.” Although I wanted to believe that, I wasn’t so sure: “I’m still one of the few who wears a mask…” Living in Japan certainly helps with that; here, it’s quite normal. But even in the Netherlands, I wore a mask on the train; my visits are always short, and, as I reasoned, getting sick would just be a waste of my time.
Fireworks
Every now and then, I check out Threads, Zuckerberg’s answer to Twitter. Now, we all know that people on Twitter (okay, okay, X) end up in bubbles, but Threads is way worse. The algorithm that serves up posts to me thinks I’m interested in exactly two things: autism and Japan. So, 50% of my feed is edgy takes from the autistic “community”, and the other half is filled with dumb questions (“How much money do I need for a two-week vacation in Tokyo?” – Uh, I don’t know, what do you plan on doing?) and even dumber statements (“Men in Japan never wear shorts because showing leg hair is gross!” – Uh, I just saw about ten guys in shorts on the train, nobody cares?) about Japan.
I went to a meeting for autistic girls in Japan
Some time ago, I was invited by Kohei Kato, an autism researcher at Tokyo Gakugei University who also works as an editorial manager at Japanese publisher Kaneko Shobo. He immediately told me not to expect too much, but he wanted to get acquainted. He gave me two books from his publishing company about autism in girls and women, in Japanese. I haven’t read the books yet (my Japanese isn’t that good, unfortunately), but the titles were promising – these books were about camouflage, or masking.
I like to move it, move it (the Japanese way)
Ever find yourself in this situation? You plan to move just a bed, so you contact a moving company, and before you know it, half your stuff is at your boyfriend’s place? That’s exactly what went down this Tuesday on moving day.
Why infodumping may not be the best love language after all
A girl is talking to the camera in a short clip made for platforms like Instagram and TikTok. “People often think we autistic people are egocentric because we respond to your sad story with a similar story from our own lives – but this is how we show empathy!” A bit later, a brightly colored image appears in my feed: “Infodumping is my autistic love language.” We need to normalize it, because this is how autistic people show they care, according to the widely shared post.
The Ikea haters
“Ikea furniture is not made for moving. It will break.” The Japanese gentleman from the moving company looked troubled. He spoke in Japanese to Google Translate, and then his phone spat out the translation in Dutch. Just before, he had asked if all my stuff was from Ikea, to which I cheerfully replied, “yes.” I love Ikea. The Japanese do not.
The apartment next door
Those who have read my new book know that, when I had just arrived in Japan and was still sleeping in my office, I wanted to rent the apartment right next door. It seemed so wonderful: a three-second commute, a shared internet connection, vacuum cleaner and pantry, and (after dismantling a partition) a very long balcony, so that I could even go “round the back” from home to office and vice versa. But alas, I just missed it, settling instead for an apartment on the other side of the building, and five floors up.
Buongiorno and konnichiwa
It’s-a me, Toeps, business manager. This blog is a selection of the things I have done in recent months. Because a lot has happened, and a lot is still going to happen! What exactly, you ask? Well…
The end of a Starbucks
François and I were standing in line for the Starbucks in the shopping center of Keio-Hachioji station, when a poster caught his eye. One of those posters with big red and yellow letters, and something in Japanese that translated as “clearance sale.” I had seen the poster before, but since my brain still doesn’t automatically translate Japanese, I hadn’t given it a second thought, and assumed it was just another advertising poster. But François’s Japanese is better, so he asked the barista, “Clearance sale?” – “Yes,” said the barista, “everything closes on March 31. We’re leaving too, the whole building is vacating.”
Two
Two big things are happening this week. One, the physical version of the English translation of my new book comes out tomorrow. The digital version came out last week, but because of Amazon’s annoying procedures, the paper edition had to wait another week. I also haven’t received an author’s copy or proof yet, because they don’t send those to Japan. Instead, I had Riemer look at it, and film it, and I made final adjustments based on that. For tomorrow’s festive photos, I just printed a color copy at the convenience store. 50 yen and some advanced origami magic, and it’s just like the real thing.
Nine struggles you’ll probably recognize when you’re autistic
This article was initially written for Flow Magazine. They asked me: What do you struggle with when you have autism?
Exchanges
A few weeks before I flew back to the Netherlands, I was already not feeling very well. I was overworked, stressed, and a bit directionless after the publication of my new book, Deze autist ging naar Japan. I had just hired Olga, mostly because that would look good; a business manager who doesn’t manage anyone, of course the Japanese immigration bureau thinks that’s odd.
Lost and found
Last month I photographed Cynthia. Among the internet veterans perhaps better known as Miss Lipgloss, but nowadays blogging under the name Cynthia.nl, because we’re all not 15 anymore, and that sticky substance your hair got caught in is more than welcome to stay in the 00’s. So, Cynthia. A surprising development for some, because eh, you didn’t like each other much, did you?
Which jobs are suitable for autistic people?
In the silly piece in Trouw to which I responded with some other autistic writers, two critical “giftedness coaches” wrote that we couldn’t have autism at all, because, ‘Writers who say they have autism but write books and are in relationships are not examples of people with autism to us.’ Why their entire article made no sense we explained clearly enough in our reply, but the fact that they mentioned the very profession of being a writer made it extra funny to me. Did these two think that someone who sits like a hermit all day in their attic, in a cabin in the woods or, in my case, at the foot of Mt. Fuji, crafting sentences, cannot be autistic? How…?
Interviews and press, and how these things actually work
Thanks to the launch of my new book (and a cringeworthy opinion piece in Trouw that we had to respond to), I have been in the papers, on the radio and even on TV over the past few months. While I was generally pleased with the coverage, I also worried from time to time, as some of the headlines were somewhat unsubtle. Although I invariably did my best to emphasize the diversity of both Japan and autism, that didn’t always come across well.
ツ
Just over a year and a half ago, when I had traveled to Korea while waiting for the Japanese reopening, I visited coastal city (and second city of Korea) Busan. I wrote about it in this blog, and later in my new book.