My favorite mug
I have a favorite mug. It's not my “woke up sexy as hell again” mug but that one's definitely a good one. My favorite mug is part of a set. I inherited the set from someone who didn't want the set any more. Most of my ceramic is like that. A lot of my pots and pans too.
The set that my favorite mug comes from is plain and white. It picks up stains in the bowl easily. The design is sturdy and utilitarian. I don't love all of the mugs in the set the same. My favorite is special but it's special in a way that makes it easy to pick it up without realizing you got the special one.
The thing that makes it special is a big chip at the rim. The chip is pretty circular and the tip of my thumb fits in it nicely. The chip is rough but not too rough. It's a nice contrast to the smooth surface of the mug over all. It's placed just to the left of the handle. It's in the perfect spot for my thumb when I'm holding the mug in my right hand which is how I normally hold it.
I go out of my way to only use it as much as I would any other mug. I'd hate to shorten its lifespan by overusing it.
Like many autistic people, I have a tendency to anthropomorphize inanimate objects. There used to be this prejudiced line of thinking that autistic people didn't have a theory of mind or even that we couldn't empathize with other people. It was a pretty bigoted concept especially when you consider that frequently we have the opposite going on: everything has a mind! Everything feels all the time! We may not be able to intuit why you're feeling Some Kind Of Way based on available data. We may not have words to describe what you or we are feeling. We may not know What The Rules Are In This Situation. But being unaware of others' internality isn't a problem we generally have.
Intellectually, we usually know it's not literally true that a mug (or a chair or a computer) has a mind. It sure feels like those things do, though.
I imagine the mug is shy about my fond feelings about it. Or maybe it enjoys being the special one. Maybe it worries every time I rub my thumb against that chip that today's the day I'm going to decide to toss it.
Of course, it (probably) does none of those things. It's a mug with a defect. Maybe it's a defect that makes it a stim toy in a way.
Maybe this post isn't a post about a mug. Maybe it's a metaphor. Maybe there's subtext. Maybe it's following unwritten rules you're unaware of. Or maybe it's just a post.