Literally (almost) day after day.

Among the enduring stereotypes of autism is a lifestyle of strict routine. Many are untrue but mark my words, not that one. Not absolutely all autists fit it, of course, but a broad sweep of us do. For example, two of the most frequent names among retrospective diagnoses of it are Emily Dickinson and Glenn Gould. Dickinson nearly always wore white and lived her whole life on her parents' estate, while Canadian pianist Gould used the same stool for performances until it was worn right through. For a modern example of an officially diagnosed person, there's Aussie teen Sam Best, whose father James took him on an African holiday to help his long-term social skills. James wrote a terrific book, Sam's Best Shot, about it, and a 2017 episode of TV's Australian Story featured them. Pre-trip, Sam's life basically consisted of school, reading Harry Potter and playing Xbox. Anything disrupting that gave him a meltdown, and despite still having those on their trip, it aided him immensely.

Now, I honestly don't have anything like a meltdown per se frequently, but my routine (although I do like some variety) being disrupted can still jar me. When I'm home on weekday afternoons I watch three quiz shows, but in forgetting about the Australian Open being on I was jarred when I couldn't watch one of them today; that provoked this whole line of thinking. I then chose to post here about it, for hopefully a more specific commentary on autistic life than usual. But I don't and shouldn't try to speak for anybody else, so here are my routine tendencies:

- All my DVDs/Blu-Rays/CD are alphabetised. The CDs are alphabetised by artist's name (surname for solo artists), and where I have multiple albums per artists, I arrange them chronologically.
- My books are arranged by height, and alphabetised when several are equally tall.
- I never share food or especially drinks for hygiene reasons.
- I wash my hair every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
- I wash up every second night (although, when living alone, dong so each night is virtually pointless).
- I vacuum and mop my unit every second Sunday.
- I always leave my phone in its separate compartment when driving.
- I always brush my teeth after breakfast and before bed.
- I usually leave my laundry out for exactly 24 hours.
- I have several groups of shirts for certain franchises and bands, and I wear them over consecutive days.
- I visit the gym twice weekly, and do 30 minutes of calisthenics daily. (My gym trainer encouraged the latter.)
- I usually eat the items on my plate in order of preference, from least favourite on.

Again, I'm not trying to tar my whole community with the same brush, and nor am I mocking routined lifestyles. Obviously doing so would make me a hypocrite anyway. I'm just detailing how I fly.