"But I Digress"

If I Can Cook, You can &%$#ing Cook

2010-06-23T21:28:00.000-07:00

Isn't it lovely? This is the egg & spinach quinoa back I mentioned in my comments last post. I made this last week to some great success. I wasn't aware I had ever eaten quinoa (KEEN-wah, I think....) before, but, now that I've seen what it looks like cooked, I may have been served some as a side dish at some hoity-toity restaurants before. Basically it's considered a grain.... but somehow related to a radish... I'm not entirely sure. If you want to learn some actual facts about it, not just remnants floating about in my addled memory, check out the "whole grains" product page on the Whole Foods site here. I just bought some millet-based gluten-free bread today, and will let you know how that experiment turns out later. It's actually frozen, which is interesting. I guess harder to keep fresh than wheat bread? Has less preservatives? I don't know.

Anyway. So, last week I was trying out a few recipes. The quinoa bake turned out pretty well - I think it was sort of fool-proof. But it raised my cooking confidence. As a rule, I don't cook. In fact, the pilot light was apparently out in our oven for the first few months Jason and I lived in our new apartment, and I had no idea. I substituted some pre-cut green, yellow, and red peppers for 1/2 the spinach and some egg whites instead of using 8 eggs. I didn't have the right sized pan so mine turned out thinner than in the photo, but it was a nice easy thing to cut a slice of and eat either as lunch or a snack at work. Sadly, I have to take milk and eggs out of the mix for the next week+ so I won't be making it again soon, but will be able to again once the restrictive part of my nutrition plan is over.

The next experiment did not go so well. It was the Turkey Meatloaf, also from Whole Foods. It was actually more labor intensive and satisfying to make than the quinoa as there was all sorts of chopping and mixing and finally, after very carefully washing my hands, mushing the whole mixture together with my hands. That was really satisfying. I think I mixed it very well. Perhaps too well. So I put it in the dish (again, not the right size; didn't really read past the ingredient list when I went shopping.... ) and this is what it looked like:

Yes, it looks oddly pink... I realized later that was partly from the tomato paste. But then I put it in the oven, for LESS time than the recipe called for, I might add, and it came out looking like this:

Hmmm. Still, oddly pink. But now, also, oddly black on the edges... hmmm....

So, we ate it. And, well, it was gross. Kinda dry, and we had no ketchup to mask the dryness. Oh well. At least I got to squish meat with my hands. Jason has a great chili recipe he thinks he can put it in. :)

It's the new Jan Brady!

2010-06-20T18:14:00.000-07:00

Hi, friends! Welcome to the new, nipped-and-tucked Blog 'O Shannon. Not only have I usurped the latest and greatest blogger background, but I'm making some changes and will be cataloguing some new adventures.

First of all, though the blog is titled "But I Digress," I am not going to focus my posts so much on the ADHD stuff. At the time I started the blog, I had just recently been diagnosed with the, uh, "Set of personality traits" and was dealing with how that affected me and integrating this new information into my identity. Don't worry - if I put my car keys in the freezer or the dog in the washing machine, you'll be the first to know. But it won't be all "Forsooth! What is-eth this thing that they call ADHD? Is it animal, mineral, or vegetable? Whyeth must I know no focus and when shall I finally be.... shit, what was the rest of that sentence?"

Cuz that's lame. I'll also try to update more and write shorter stuff cuz, hey, if a magazine article is supposed to be as long as the average human bathroom visit, then I think the average time it takes to read a blog should be "quick enough I can be sure the boss doesn't catch me at work." Or I guess, average bathroom visit, if you have an iPhone (now go wash your hands, you filthy bastard).

Finally, my new adventure. Perhaps there will be other adventures soon, but, right now, my focus is on eating well and getting into shape. I am lucky enough to say that most of the things in my life are going pretty great right now; I have a job I like, I'm writing most weeks, my dog doesn't bark as much as he used to, I have a parking spot, and I'm in love with a super hunky, dorky, smarty-pants man who loves me lots and lots. But this one thing, knowing that I'm overweight and knowing that I'm not so healthy, has plagued me for a while. So, I have embarked on a 6 month long, hopefully lifestyle-changing nutrition adventure. It's a lot of baby steps so I'm not even thinking about the exercise part right now or counting calories. For the last few weeks I've been trying to eat good stuff -- lots of berries, some leafy greens (as much as I can handle), organic meats and cheeses, almond milk, greek yogurt, almond butter and apples, and my daily, super-awesome smoothie.

So come along, children, and join me on my antioxidant-filled jaunt down the path that leads to cardiac health and hot and sexy jeans. If nothing else, I promise it'll be funny.

I was going to write a blog, but I can’t remember about what

2010-02-04T18:32:00.000-08:00

My latest post was a bit misleading as I actually wrote it a month ago and just posted it. So now I am actually at the END of my bootcamp. I have to say, it went really well and I would recommend it to AD/HD peeps and anyone just trying to get some stuff done that they can’t quite make happen. A few highlights:

I had four categories to work on – cleaning/organizing at home, developing a daily writing practice, organizing my work day, and finding a new job. Well, at the end of the first week I received an email for a job interview and had that job by the end of the next week. So, hooray, I got to get rid of a whole category. More importantly, I have a new job. Hoorah! I really like it a lot. I’m getting to do more, you know, interacting with humans and so on, and less interacting with, like, paper. I could talk about it a lot but I don’t want to say too much publicly about my OLD job, just that there are several people there that I already miss very much.

So, hoorah – no 4th category! So more time/energy to work on the other categories, right? Um, sort of. I would say that I am well on the way to developing some good habits. I get up early almost every day to write, at least for a half-hour. That is really huge, because I was very worried that I wouldn’t write once my screenwriting deadline had passed. (I’ll need to start working on it again in a few days, but that’s another story)

I also have started “picking up” around the house for a mere 10 minutes most nights. I wouldn’t say it’s a habit yet, and I wouldn’t say that I still don’t dread it. However, knowing that I only have to do it for 10 minutes makes me actually do it, so that’s another 50 minutes of cleaning a week that I might not have done at all otherwise. Our bootcamp director talks about “paying off the interest” rather than “making payments toward the balance,” which means that, if you’re only spending 10 minutes a day either cleaning, organizing, filing, dealing w/paperwork, etc., while you are building a habit, you are probably just dealing with what’s new that day and not getting to the Big, Scary Pile that made you sign up for a procrastination boot camp in the first place (see last blog for photo of Big Scary Pile, with dog). So ultimately I will need to up the time spend a night to 15 or 20 minutes, but right now I am “being kind” to myself and still trying to just build the habit.

I would say that, ultimately, the thing I learned from the boot camp is that I really do have the power to make small changes in my life that make a big difference. I realize this sounds extremely trite, but to someone used to looking at her disorganized, chaotic life saying “I don’t even know where to start,” it is a big deal. It’s sort of like the first time I did Weight Watchers and realized, “Oh my gosh, I can really do this.” I just didn’t really care to do it that long. But THIS change is easier – there’s lots of rewards, lots of self-kindness, and lots of baby steps. As someone used to taking big bites and having eyes bigger than her stomach (and known for mixing metaphors), learning that I can take baby steps and still be successful is pretty huge.

The next step is maintenance, which I will have to get back to you on…

2010-02-04T18:17:00.001-08:00

Hey folks. As you can see, over the last year or so, I have been toying with several different ways of approaching my blog. Originally I tried posting once a week, and then later I thought it would be better to write shorter, more “off the cuff” blogs and post more frequently. THEN I thought, hey, what if I just go like five months without posting anything? That’s a good idea, too.

Somehow the last approach has not increased readership so I’ll need to start from scratch again. Luckily, this time, I have help. Woot! I’m currently in the process of a month long AD/HD “Boot camp.” Which means, right now, I am using my daily 30 minutes uninterrupted writing time. Yay! The idea is that a month is enough time to build habits, and we’ve been focusing on “effort, not results” (which I like, a LOT) so that it is more about putting structure in your life than to see magic changes. I won’t go into much detail about the program itself because Kim, our coach, describes it much better anyway. Here is her site if you’re interested: www.kensingtoncoaching.com. She does one-on-one ADD coaching as well, and she’s really, really great.

So, I’ve run into quite a few obstacles so far in my journey. After our kick-off phone call, I was pumped to get home and start my first task: set a timer and just “pick-up” around the apartment for 10 minutes. The idea is to try to pick up around the apt for 10 min a day to just keep it looking nice, rather than going “OH MY GOD, I need to clean for like 4 hours!” and either a) not doing it (who the hell wants to clean for 4 hours?) or b) doing it and then hating cleaning so much that I never clean again. So cleaning for 10 min: totally manageable. Since we have (notice I say HAVE, not HAD, and this story takes place in the past…) lots of dirty dishes, I thought that would be a good place to start because it’s a nice, self-contained task, but would make a visible difference.

Of course I get home and the water has been turned off. I knew the water was going to be turned off earlier anyway, but apparently they, like, broke something while trying to fix it and now it’s really really off. I am told by a neighbor that it’s supposed to stay off for the next 24 hrs. GREAT. (It turned out it was turned back on like 2 hrs later.) So I go inside, set my timer, and look around. Where the HELL do I start? The apartment looks like a sty. Every flat surface (including floors) is covered with clutter. The kitchen is a mess. I have a pile of clothes sitting in front of the closet that is some dirty, some clean. And of course my dog is like “Hey dude, what’s up? Time to play with me?” I ended up having to chain him to his little dog bed because everything I picked up to clean he thought was a toy, which slowed things down considerably.

I decide to start by clearing the Xmas lights and ornaments off the coffee table because that’s the most embarrassing thing to still have out. So this means finding places for the Xmas stuff, which means finding other parts of the apt that are messy, and thinking I need to clean that, too. In the end, I clean about .01% of every part of the apartment, but not any one part to any degree that another person could tell when looking at it. Effort, not results, right?

Obstacle #2: I’m supposed to get up and write for 30 min in the morning (as I am now). Unfortunately, I left my laptop, keys, and wallet in my friend’s car last night. But still, in the effort of habit building, I get up early, shower, walk dog (in rain), and then get ride from lovely, helpful BF to work. I was planning on writing with a pen on a blank page of computer paper while I sat in the school cafe until I remembered that my co-worker gets in to work early and would have unlocked the office by now.

Aside: Did I mention that we had a fire (or a non-flame fire, just a lot of smoke) in our elevator last week and now neither of our elevators work, AND I work on the 8th floor? And that the 8th floor is really the 9th floor if you count the mezzanine? (I do.) You know, you would think, having to go up and down nine flights of stairs every day would make you BETTER at going up and down nine flights of stairs. So far, not happening. I now look forward to going to work even less.

Anyway, co-worker had come in so now am using office computer to write blog. Because that’s what office computers are for. So I’m glad I came in early after all.

It’s been interesting so far – I will keep you guys posted on the further ups and downs.

Two Years Ago Today

2009-10-07T12:51:00.000-07:00

On October 7, 2007, my grandpa on my mom's side, Donald Moore, passed away, early in the morning. Thanks to a very understanding boss and supervisor at the Writers' Program, where I was working at the time, I had spent an entire week with my family by his bedside, waiting for nature to take its course. I finally decided it was time to fly back to California and that morning, while getting ready for my early flight, I got the call from my mom, subdued and resolute, that he had finally passed.

I nodded, a lump in my throat, though she couldn't hear the nod through the phone. "How is Grandma taking it?"

My mom paused.

"She doesn't know yet. No one has woken her up."

My grandma was laying in the hospital bed, as she had done for the last few nights of his life, embracing him as best she could without disturbing the one tube he had inserted into his arm - no food and no fluids, just some morphine for a pleasant send off. And he was dead. But she wouldn't know that until someone woke her up.

I cannot think about this horrible but beautiful moment without getting extremely choked up. It is so tragic to think that someone had to disturb her peace to let her know that her companion of 62 years had slipped away from her. And then I always laugh a little imagining everyone arguing over who had to actually do it, although I can't remember if my mom was alone or if my sister, aunt, or uncle were with her that morning.

My grandma and grandpa were like peanut butter and jelly, only the cutest damn pb & j you ever did see. He was one of the quietest, most introverted people I have ever known, and she is, to this day, one of the most flamboyant, excited, outgoing people I can think of. Yet they went together so well. They would play a game together where she would pretend she had just met him, and call him "Doctor" or "Henry." For their 50th wedding anniversary, I got to make a speech about their "first 50 years" and had the opportunity to interview them (when I say them, it was probably grandma). I learned fascinating things about their early years, such as their Honeymoon wasn't a Honeymoon at all but really a ride on an army bus to Grandpa's next station, while they were in the midst of WWII. I believe that Grandma and her friends came to visit the base at some point as part of a USO effort, and I think it involved an embarrassing song and the wearing of some pantyhose on their heads...

They were so affectionate with one another, even in his last years. He had a rapidly progressing case of Alzheimer's and stopped recognizing a lot of people, but never her, to my knowledge. It was because of the dementia that his passing was probably a blessing, but we knew it would be horrible for Grandma. He had been by her side for 62 years; through wars, economic crises, births of children, grandchildren, graduations, weddings, every little step of life, they had been together. They had trundled along in the motor home from one side of the country to the other, even up to Alaska and back. My grandpa had built not only the house she still lives in, but the famed lake cabin at Loon Lake. His hand prints were everywhere in her life, but he would no longer be there.

I think I understand why they let her sleep a little longer.

Inane Facebook Updating: OMG! I love lunch!

2009-10-05T16:53:00.000-07:00

My neighbor, Tiffany, was helping me reorganize my closet this weekend by chatting with me while I folded and sorted (she wasn’t being lazy – this was her job which I had asked her to do and it actually worked very well for me). She entertained me by reading from her iPhone a list of totally inane Facebook updates from a specific friend of hers who apparently updates frequently and mundanely. My favorite was “Just remembered I bought muffins earlier!!! YUM!!!!!”

Now, I think that it’s part of the beauty of FB that you can write whatever you want and you can make a headline out of something seemingly mundane. However, I think that some people do this successfully but realizing the mundane-ness of their update, maybe with a hint of irony, and also, not updating every fricking five seconds about EVERY THING IN THE WORLD THAT HAPPENS TO YOU EVER. I once almost updated that I was proud of myself for remembering that I had taken the vacuum cleaner out and then didn’t trip on it on the way to the bathroom at 3:00 am, but decided against it. It seemed really, really, inane, yet it did pass the golden fb rule test: if a friend of mine had posted something about almost tripping on the vacuum in the middle of the night, I actually would’ve quite enjoyed that little, funny window into their life. So maybe I should post it. But it would seem strange now: Shannon is happy that she remembered just in time the placement of her vacuum so she didn’t trip on it on the way to the bathroom, four months ago.

So I suppose it remains really up to the individual what FB update is really interesting enough to post, and to his or her friends whether or not they give a damn. I probably would err on the side of not censoring ones self.

However, because I am only 1 part Earth Mother and 3 parts Point and Laugh At That Person Who Just Fell Down, I have created this list of hypothetical updates that I think we can all agree should never, ever, be posted. We’ll call this hypothetical over-poster Julie Smith.

Julie Smith is really not happy with her current vitamins. Really, isn’t there something smaller than football she could swallow each day??? Hello????

Julie Smith has a commute, but not to bad of a commute. I guess I should be happy about it cuz some people have to drive, like FAAAAR, yo!

Julie Smith is really excited about omelets today. Why can’t every day be omelet day?

Julie Smith just heard the greatest make-up tip ever. DON’T YOU WISH SHE’D SHARE????

Julie Smith totally loves her podiatrist.

Julie Smith just went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror and her zit is TOTALLY ready to be popped. Can’t wait to get home!!!

Julie Smith can’t believe how temperate it is today.

Julie Smith had a lot of blood in the sink this morning when she flossed.

Julie Smith oh no, TOO MUCH CAKE AT LUNCH!

Julie Smith is SOOO excited about watching Oprah this afternoon!!!

Julie Smith just took a quiz.

Julie Smith just took another quiz.

Julie Smith took about 300 quizzes and really, really wants to share with you what color she is most like, what A-Team member she would be, what 90s song defines her sex life, and what dead baroque musician her mom most looks like.

Julie Smith forgot to feed her goldfish again. OOOPS!!!!!!

Julie Smith is thinking about doing her homework.

Julie Smith someone just took my favorite pair of scissors aaaaak!

Julie Smith IS SOOOOOO BOOOOOORRRRREEEDDDDDD!!!!!

Julie Smith was pronounced dead at 3:51 pm today.

When and when not to take a ritalin vacation

2009-08-31T22:25:00.000-07:00

Or

Flap heel toe, shuffle AH-HA!

Sunday, 8/03/09:
For the record, I just walked in my apartment and barked an order at Jason that he must not talk to me until I say that it is ok to. Sorry, Jason. You see, I have the idea for what I want to write in my head right now but I feel much like when I first wake up from a dream and I know I have about 30 seconds to remember the dream before it all slips away, dispersing like morning mist.

I should have taken my ritalin today.

Yet, not taking it gave me a magnificent AH-HA moment where I suddenly remembered an experience from the past and saw it through the eyes of a now-diagnosed with AD/HD present self. (Yet, also, not taking it is frustrating me to tears right now because I’m afraid I’m not going to fully capture my ah-ha moment before the dream slips away.)

So, I went to another tap class today. Since last week’s class was a TEENY bit too easy for me, I decided to take the next level up, which is still called “beginner,” but, since The Edge Performing Arts Center is hard core, is still pretty, uh, hard core. I was hoping it would be the same “whatever!” dude teaching from last week who wore baggy basketball shorts and tap shoes with no socks, but instead I saw a spry young woman who, although she kept complaining that “high school seems so long ago, all of a sudden!” looked about 16. I got to class a half hour early (because you either get really really early or really really late with Shannon) and saw her planning the combination we would work on in class. That was probably a mistake since it looked REALLY complicated but I tried to convince myself that maybe she was just planning a combination for another class or just for fun, like, she was going to dance for her friends at a party later and wanted to come up with something really complcated to impress them.

The class went pretty well for the first half – no, actually, I should say it went pretty well the whole way through, I just had some issues near the end. The steps were honestly not too hard for me and the speed could’ve been dialed back a wee bit for my taste but I made do. The 16-year-old who complained about her impending HS reunion kept reinterating that the important thing was to do the steps at our own pace and not worry about speed so much. As I said, I did pretty well through the warm-up and the across-the-floor combination.

Then we started learning the combination which, again, I could keep up with and made me feel confident. I could even do it rather quickly. Stomp, toe, toe, step; stomp, toe, toe, step; shuffle heel-toe-heel; scuff toe-heel heel, shuffle ball-change. WHEW. Got it. We started out with four counts of eight, went over those a few times, and then move on to the next four counts of eight. As soon as I started committing to memory the next part of the dance, I felt the first part I’d already learn starting to fade form my mind like Marty McFly from the polaroid of the future where he didn’t exist. (You know, in the scene, where he's playing the guitar, and then he looks at his hand and it's starting to disappear...nevermind...) The teacher kept smiling from ear to ear and saying “Got it? Go on?” as she nodded her floppy pony-tail head and I said, weaker and weaker “um..yes…what was the last part with the flap heel toe…um, nevermind…”

As soon as I would learn a new part, it erased more and more from my brain of the beginning of the combination. What I really needed to do was either slow down, do the whole beginning part about 12 more times until it was completely committed to memory and THEN move on, or go back in time and take a ritalin this morning. Since the time and space of the classroom and universe allowed for neither of these things to happen, I just tried to keep up as much as I could, and stick to the parts of the dance that were really easy for me and try to catch back up whenever those happened.

And then: AH HA. I totally remember feeling like this ALL the time when I was a kid in dance class. Whenever we learned a new combination or dance, I would start out confident, and, as we went on, grew less and less able to retain the new steps I was learning, let alone remember what had happened at the beginning of the song. The only things that stuck with me were the parts that really “gelled” with me, i.e., a move I really liked doing or a part that really fit with a particular part of the song at that moment. I totally had a flashback to being 12 years old, wearing my black spandex shorts (with the neon pink stripe up the side), having my hair in a side pony tail, and trying to keep my feet up with all the other feet in the class and feeling stupid and frustrated that I couldn’t. (And then doing something silly and distruptive to make everyone laugh and get yelled at by the teacher.)

I suddenly realized: if I had known about the AD/HD back then, if I was on some sort of stimulent medicine or at least if I had the education and awareness, I might not have been so frustrated. I might not have quit and re-joined ballet 2x and ended up a sixth grader in the class with the 3rd graders, wearing a pink leotard while all of my friends had graduated to the sophisticated black leotards of level IV ballet and above, and later, received the honors being able to dance en pointe, i.e., wear the really awesome shoes with the hard toes that made them able to dance on their toes.

It’s so funny to realize this all of a sudden because I remember really enjoying and yet really being frustrated with dance as a kid, and not really knowing why. I’m not saying this was the only reason, but it did take me back to that “oh, crap, everyone else is getting this and I’m not” moment and treat myself with a little more compassion than I did as a pre-teen.

Back to the present: by the end of the class, I was mostly lugging my body to this side, then that side, then spinning it around, to match the pace of the other dancers. I was actually not doing all that bad, but I know I could’ve done much better and had more fun. Not only would I struggle to remember the steps, but then I would start thinking about struggling to remember the steps and how this would make a great blog and then I would realize I had totally not been paying attention for like three sets of eight counts. The more I struggled to whip my brain into shape, the more mentally fatigued I got and the harder it was to remember even the easy stuff that I had repeated over and over from the beginning of the dance.

Still, I DID have a good time and I do plan to go back – maybe to the basic level again and armed with 30 mgs of FOCUS SHANNON, FOCUS pills. And realizing during the class WHY I was having a hard time made me much kinder to myself and prevented me from getting really frustrated and throwing in the towel as I have done in dance classes of yore (there was a really challenging hip-hop class that comes to mind from the summer of ’02 where I was frustrated with not only my lack of focus and short-term-memory but also the fact that I have very little “soul”).

A Week in the Life

2009-08-27T10:00:00.000-07:00

I decided today that I'm going to make a list for an entire week of all of the small (or big) things I do that are goofy, embarassing, or strange seem to be related somehow to my AD/HD. I came up with this idea when I was cooking microwave mac n' cheese and the directions said "Cook 3 minutes on high, stir, and cook one more minute." I registered this information, put my meal in the microwave, set it for one minute, and then walked away. I was surprised that it was still so cold until I remembered pushing the "60 seconds" auto button.

FYI, I know there will be those devil's advocates who will say "How do you know you did such and such BECAUSE of AD/HD?" I agree with my imaginary challenger that I don't, and it's a slippery slope to say what I do "because" of AD/HD. It's not like a demon that inhabits my soul and makes me put my keys in the freezer. And there's nothing to say that I wouldn't do random, spacey things if I didn't have AD/HD. Mostly I'm just trying to make a funny list of air-head things I do in a week just RELAX ALREADY!!!

Why the LA Public Library is a Boon for AD/HD peeps

2009-08-26T17:00:00.000-07:00

1. Rather than compulsively spending money at amazon.com in order to satiate that AD/HD "itch," I can compulsively look up a bunch of books on amazon.com and then put them on hold at the library.

2. Can get lots of books at once so I'm not bored.

3. Reading stimulates my brain, which makes it happy and focused.

4. The library is nice enough to send me little emails when my books are about to become overdue so I don't have to pay fines (er, I don't pay them as often as I would if I didn't have the reminders).

5. Short walk to library gives me an excuse to take a break and get out of the office.

6. Numerous homeless people hanging out around library make me feel very clean and successful, and also reassure me that there's a cool place to hang out if I'm ever homeless

The one bad thing about the LA Public library for AD/HD peeps:

1. Possibility that all of my holds will become available at one time and I'll never actually read anything, just look at the pictures in the "French for Dummies" book.

Update: As I wrote this blog, I had this nagging feeling that I was forgetting something about the library but couldn't put my finger on it. Looked up my record and, sure enough, "French Demystified" is overdue by two days. Oh well. They need money from somewhere, right?

Shannon Taps Her Way Into Your Heart

2009-08-22T19:03:00.001-07:00

First of all, sorry guys for not updating at all last week. As you can see from my previous blog post, I had a pretty eventful one. More on that later! Today's post is about tap dancing which, you are probably thinking, has nothing to do with AD/HD. Ah, but you see, you can make ANYTHING about AD/HD because AD/HD is all about being random. No, but really, the only way that this post has anything to do with AD/HD is that exercise is good for building energy and focus in the AD/HD individual.

By the way, if anyone is wondering why I'm writing AD***SLASH***HD it's because it is apparently now the "standardized" way of referring to ADD or ADHD and it's sort of like saying "ADD, with or without hyperactivity." Man, I had to type "hyperactivity" like three times. I kept trying to spell it "dyperactivity." Diaper activity? I think that's what my new mother friend jen (MNMFJ!) is doing a lot of these days. But I digress.

Anyway. So yeah. I have come to realize as of late, like, uh, the last 5 years, that I'm seriously getting out of shape. I always wanted to be one of those people who was as active as a 25 year old when they are 60. Now, at about 8 months away from turning 30, (ohmigod, only 8 months to plan the worlds super most awesome 30th birthday EVER!) I'm realizing that I should start out by avoiding being a 30 year old who's as in shape as a 60 year old.

But, I kind of hate exercise. I can go to the gym MAYBE three times in a row before I decide that it's super boring, no matter how much awesome Michael Jackson music I put on my iPod. An eliptical machine is still going nowhere and I shudder just thinking about whether I want to watch the monitor with MTV or CNN with the sound off. Not that I really want to GO somewhere with my exercise. The thought of lugging my butt up a dusty hill where the air is filled with ragweed also does not motivate to get off of my Ikea Erktorp loveseat. What do I like to do that involves movement? There must be SOMETHING. I mean, besides buying the big keyboard from the movie Big and playing chopsticks every night.

But ah, yes, what did I do as a Kid? And why did I just capitalize the word Kid? When I was a kid, I danced! I went to probably about 3-5 hours of dance classes a week between the ages of 7 and 15 - jazz, ballet and, probably my favorite because I was best at it, tap! So I look at the schedule of my local dance studio - a really premire institution, actually, called The Edge (no, there isn't a studio next door called Bono, just Gold's Gym). You can look it up at www.edgepac.com if anyone is interested. Just about the only class that is my level that I can fit into my schedule is the basic level tap class. So I get really lucky and find a pair of tap shoes on eBay for 99 CENTS. They were really nice and fit me perfectly. I need to send the lady who sold them to me a gift card or something because I paid less for the shoes and the shipping altogether than she paid for the shipping alone. I was so excited when I got them that I immediately put them on, thought I was half-dressed and wearing a towel on my head, and started tap-dancing in the kitchen. 30 seconds later, I realized I was making huge scuff marks on the floor, so I took it outside to my concrete "patio" (actually, 8'x5' area by the dumpster). And did some tapping out there (now fully clothed and no towel on head). This proved rather detimental to the shoes themselves so I tried to wait until class.

But anyway. Actually making myself go to class on Saturday, that was another thing. I kept hoping something would come up. I was worried that everyone else there would be 17 and know what they were doing. Finding no excuse not to go, I dragged my butt down to the dance studio. I forgot what dance studios *smell* like. How to explain? I guess if you imagine walking off of an elevator and walking into a sweaty old shoe. Actually, imagine getting hit in the face with a sweaty old shoe. Apparently good ventilation is not high on their list of priorities.

Once people started showing up to the class, there was a pretty good mix of beginners and people like me who used to dance but hadn't forever. In fact, there were two people about my age who were taking their first ever class, which made me feel a lot better. The teacher was very good and led us along gradually, beginning with just tow-taps and heel taps and working up to a few legitimate steps at the end. By then, I was having tons of fun and adding my own sweat to the hit-in-the-face-with-a-shoe smell. I even felt like the class was, dare I say, a little too basic?

Anyway, long story short, I had tons of fun and felt energized and happy all day. So, who wants to go back with me next Saturday? :)

Can't Hardly Wait. Actually, Can. Pretty Nervous.

2009-08-13T14:48:00.000-07:00

Ok so I wanted to write a big huge blog about this but I haven't yet (although I've been writing a bunch of messy notes to try to catalogue this moment as best I can) but I just HAVE to get the news out there.

So, yesterday, at 6:04 pm, I got a phone call from my search consultant. I was at dinner with a friend in a loud restaurant and ran outside so I could hear the call.

She said she had just got back in town from a trip and had several messages on her machine - one of which was from my birth father, Steven. He received her letter, which, I believe also included my letter & photo, and is really excited to speak with me. We are possibly going to talk on Saturday.

Oh my god, it's actually happening.

Oh my god.

Don't ask me how I feel, because I really don't know!

FYI, the reason we haven't heard from the mom yet is that my search lady doesn't have her correct address yet. So she hasn't yet received a copy of the letter.

Anyway, nothing poetic to say today, just had to share!

SWADHDF (single white ad/hd female)

2009-08-11T14:59:00.000-07:00

I totally came up with a great blog idea this morning and now I can't remember it. I am not making this up.

So here's my other blog idea, that I TOTALLY STOLE from an ongoing email thread between my ADHD Positive friends. I'll call them Steph and Jess. They really are named Steph and Jess but I'm going to call Jess Steph and call Steph Jess so that I can pretend that I'm being anonymous. Only I'm not going to refer to them individually at all, so it will make no difference. Besides, I think they're approximately 1/2 my reading audience.

Side note: Steph and Jess had never been introduced before and got along famously. You can say it's just the anonymity of the Internet, but I think there is some sort of common bond that makes a lot of AD/HD peeps friends at first tangent. Certainly I've met a few I've wanted to punch in the face, but for the most part it seems like a strange, whimsical sorority. (I realize that this excludes dudes, but most of my AD/HD friends are female, for some reason. Also, what dude doesn't want to crash a sorority party???)

So anyway. Jess and Steph were discussing the idea that there should be a website dedicated to men who want to date women with ADD. I actually disagree, because I think it's better to surprise them a few weeks into the relationship. Just kidding. Not that you want to "warn" someone ahead of time, but an AD/HD peep definitely wants to look for a mate who is going to, shall we say, "compliment" her personality. Here's what Jess (the real Jess, not the Stephanie Jess), whose hilarious and intelligent blog can be found on my sidebar, said the profile of her ideal man would read as such:

"I like women with random conversation tangents, who take on too many projects to ever complete, who forget things and lose things around the house 10 times a day, who ask repeatedly when an event begins because writing it down in ten places and putting it on the Google calendar isn't enough, who get so absorbed in Mah-jongg Solitaire that they lose track of time and go to bed at 2 AM instead of 11 PM, and who make impulse decisions or can't make any decisions because the options are all so intriguing."

Well, everyone has a type. I'm sure there's someone out there for ya, Jess. GOOD LUCK. (Oh man, is she screwed.)

Jk. Jess's description of herself could easily be that of myself or Stephanie (the real Stephanie, not the Jess Stephanie), just substitute Bubbletown or World of Warcraft for Mah-jongg Solitaire, respectively. Edward Hallowell, author of several AD/HD self help books and go-to guy for all things AD/HD related says in the book "Delivered from Distraction" that probably the two most important "treatments" for a person with AD/HD are to find the right job and marry the right person. Of course, we all want a job we love and to find "the right person" (if we're looking, of course - and certainly monogamy may not be for all those w/AD/HD). I think what Dr. Hallowell is saying is that choosing the right mate can be immensely helpful when it comes to managing one's AD/HD symptoms. But what is this "right person" for someone with AD/HD?

Definitely it's different for each person, but I think it's safe to say that most AD/HD peeps need a certain sort of understanding. I'm making it sound like we're damaged goods, which I don't believe we are. I guess the way I should say it is that, as people with AD/HD, we will be much happier with someone who is the type to be a little more involved in their mate's life than maybe some would prefer. Instead of trying to describe this intangible thing, let me give you a few examples from my own life, since Jason has told me several times how much he likes it when I broadcast details about our personal life on the web. Jason is a particularly nurturing person, by which I mean I think he has an innate drive within him to want to help others, especially his close loved ones. This works well for me because, as it turns out, I need a lot of help. (Including professional help.) Once I got over that big hurdle of realizing that having AD/HD meant I was going to need to start asking others for help, it was a very nice surprise to have someone waiting for me, ready to help. Sometimes it's a very small thing, like setting a reminder on his iPhone for me to give Lando his monthly flea treatment, and sometimes it's big things continually prodding me about my writing. He's a neatnick (so he cleans) but not obsessively so (so he can actually live with me). I do still have guilt over the fact that he will probably always do the dishes much, much, much more often than I do, though he tries to reassure me that this can just be "his job." I don't know what "my job" is, though. Certainly not dusting or vacuuming. I should add here that probably the best thing any AD/HD couple can do for themselves is hire a cleaning lady. Ours quit. Anyone got a good one?

It seems like Jason and I have a good understanding where he is helping me but in a way that enables me to help myself rather than just smother him or use him as a crutch. Hopefully he agrees with this ascertation. He also seems to enjoy my tangents and unpredictablility, while having extra stores of patience and understanding. It seems like the AD/HD mate should help to provide a some extra structure but be flexible enough to roll with the AD/HD punches and enjoy some quality out-of-the-box thinking. What do you guys think?

Parking Tickets and Dog Barf

2009-08-10T11:51:00.000-07:00

It’s been a strange weekend. My dog started throwing up Thursday night and, by Friday afternoon, when my dog-walking neighbor called me to tell me he was still throwing up in addition to some much smellier, harder-to-clean things, Jason and I decided that a vet appointment was definitely in order. We took him in to the Cahuenga animal hospital the next morning. We waited in the lobby with a German Shepard who had been attacked by a pit-bull and had several staples as well as a length of surgical tubing used as a drain sewed into her shaved back. There was also a cat with an ear allergy. Normally Lando would strain at his leash to check out both of these animals but he just sat under my chair, curled up in a little ball of dog, looking pathetic.

I tend to fall into the camp of overreacting to any sign of illness, my own or my dog’s. The last time I thought he was sick, I was so worried that I thought I needed to take the rest of the day off work to take him in right that instant, and then he was fine the next day. This time, though, the vet seemed more worried than I was, and named a litany of very scary things that could be wrong with him. I assumed they would poke and prod at him maybe for a few hours and then we could take him home but, because he was throwing up even water, she wanted put him on doggie I.V.s and keep him until Monday. She also wanted to charge me a sum of money that would probably buy her a new one of those Louis Vuitton bags I saw her walk in with and, because I didn’t know what the hell was wrong with my dog and didn’t want him to keep looking at me with that “Mommy, what’s wrong with me?” puppy face, I acquiesced.

AD/HD symptoms tend to get worse with stress, which, of course, creates more stress, which is why a person with AD/HD is usually either slowly trudging up a hill or falling down one at any given moment. I guess I must’ve been stressed about Lando because I managed to earn myself TWO parking tickets in two days and lock my house keys in my office. The first ticket was because of a tragically short five minutes of expired meter. I knew I had to check the meter again at 6:36 pm and I knew I should’ve set an alarm on my phone but then I started reading this REALLY funny book (This Book Will Change Your Life, which apparently has an accompanying website www.thiswebsitewillchangeyourlife.com). I mean, it was really funny. So funny that when Jason was finished with his haircut at 6:41, I looked up at the clock, swore, and ran to the car only to find that yes, I was zapped in somewhere in the five minutes that I was laughing my ass off in the salon waiting room. (Apparently there are still a few LADOT employees who have not read my pro-meter maid blog from 8/4/09.)

Thinking foolishly that LADOT lightning could only strike once, at least in one weekend, I chalked it up to bad luck. Then, the following morning I was late for work and, rather than walk the 10 minutes, I took the car so I could drive in 3 minutes, proudly sending my “in” email to attendance at 7:01 am. Since we try to keep the parking lot free for prospective students to park in, I parked outside at a meter, because it was a SUNDAY, and THEY HAVE NEVER EVER MADE YOU PAY FOR PARKING ON SUNDAYS BEFORE. So of course I didn’t look at the signs – I was running late and I had parked here without feeding the meter monster at least ten times before. How surprised was I, then, to find yet ANOTHER ticket on my windshield, and only then saw the sign that said the “2 hr parking Sunday from 11:00 – 8:00 pm.” I rescind my positive blog about meter maids.

Oh yeah, and I also left my keys in my office. These keys also included a key TO the office. Since Jason had met me at work and had keys to the car and house, I just shook my head and told him I’d get them on Monday.

Well, it’s Monday now and I’m supposed to get a call from Dr. Louis Vuitton at any minute (she’s very nice and competent, I should add) telling me I can go get Lando. And it’s a good thing that I thought of sending a text message to someone as I stood in line at the bank this morning, not because I thought of something funny to text about but because sometimes when I am bored for more than three seconds and I have nothing to knit, read, or play, I text message people, because that’s when I realize that I had left my cell phone at home. I reminded my boyfriend about 9 times last night and this morning to remind me to get Lando’s leash out of the car and then I left my phone in my apartment. (Again, Jason was with me so he was able to drive me back and let me in to my own apartment, since I had no keys.)

So Jason gets the Best Boyfriend Ever award, my vet gets a new purse, and the city of Los Angeles makes an easy $100. But I won’t care; as long as Lando gets a clean bill of health I get a happy, furry ball of dog back in my possession today.

Things That Would Have Made it not as Bad that I Spilled A Full Cup of Hot Coffee On My Desk Yesterday

2009-08-07T13:09:00.001-07:00

1) If it had already drank some of it.
2) If it had not been hot.
3) If coffee were not brown.
4) If I did not have a huge stack of documents sitting right where the coffee was spilled.
5) If the coffee had not immediately spread under the mesh desktop organizer that held more documents and which is extremely difficult to clean.
6) If I weren’t so fond of my multi-colored post-it note cube.
7) If I enjoyed having a sticky stapler.
8) If the smell of mildew and coffee mixed together were more pleasant.
9) If I had not yelled “OH SHIT!” very loudly in front of my boss.
10) If I had just not spilled the damn thing in the first place.

The Beautiful Ice Sculpture

2009-08-05T14:26:00.000-07:00

This morning, I was in the cafe at the school I work at, and noticed, for the first time, this lovely zen fountain. The cafe has just been redone and one corner is the "Casablanca corner" and is decorated in a fun, eclectic, Afro-Mediterranean sort of way. I had seen this fountain but not really looked at it closely.

It was beautiful. While water spilled out of one main cup-looking spout in the middle, the movement of the water pushed these other small cup things floating on the surface in a circle around the center cup sculpture. Not only that, but I noticed that the cups were all made out of metal tuned to different pitches so, as the cups floated around the fountain, they gently bumped into one another making light, ethereal tinkling noises.

I was transfixed by this fountain, man. I could've started at that thing for like five minutes and must've stood there for at least a good 60-90 seconds, contemplating the fountain. Who must've picked this fountain out? How did they choose it? Did it make them as calm and happy to view it as it did me? And how many times have I or other people walked past it without even giving it a second glance?

And that's when I realized: Oh shit. I forgot to take my Ritalin today.

Fight with Meter Maid as Seen from One Block Away

2009-08-04T09:18:00.000-07:00

So, I'm walking Lando and it's a street cleaning day which means that there are almost no cars parked on the side of the street we are coming down. About a half a block up, I see the dreaded LA DOT parking Prius next to a car which, once I walked up next to it, I would be able to see was a silver Mercedes wagon.

Next to the cars was a half-bald white dude in sweat pants arguing a black lady, the parking ticket giver, who wore black hipster glasses and had her hair back in a neat bun. Their interaction looked like it had been planned by someone directing a movie where they new no sound would be used in the final cut:

He waves his arms emphatically and angrily, points at her.

She points at the sign and shakes her head.

He waves his arms again in frustration.

She shrugs and points at the sign again.

He points to the sign and puts his hands in the air: "Well, where am I supposed to park?"

She makes a gesture, pointing around the coner.

The whole thing was pretty entertaining in that shadenfruede sort of way, but I guess I shouldn't feel too bad since the guy was making his misery extremely public. It's funny because, as I don't have a parking spot, parking can, at times, be a major sorce of stress in my life, so I should've probably taken this guy's side. I mean, where the hell are you supposed to park on a street cleaning day? What, I can't leave my car here for like FIVE SECONDS and grab a newspaper? Do you get off on this sort of thing?

But the human was actually NOT me, which, of course, made it FUNNY. It's like a scientific equation: Pain + someone else = humor. I think I'm stealing that from somewhere... but in any case, not only was it not me, but this guy was like totally losing his shit while the neat-bun black lady was totally keeping it together and not letting him ruffle her. And I have thought this before: Man, that job must suuuuuuuuck. I think of all the times I got shit from people when I was working at Starbucks or Ann Taylor just for stupid things: Why did my friend get more foam in her cappuccino? Why are the ugly green pants on sale but the pretty tan pants not on sale? (Guess why: Because no one wants the ugly green pants!)And these attacks are always personal, like I had some sort of say in which colors Ann Taylor puts on sale which week. Like they even let me decide what mannequinne gets to wear which pants. I can only put my favorite necklace on a mannequinne if we are sold out of the necklace shown in the picture and it is an acceptable substitution.

Anyway. I can't deal with stupid arguments about foam and clothing - there's no way in HELL I could ever deal with people EVERY DAY getting in my face about me giving them a ticket for something they are obviously in the wrong about. No way. That has to be on list of Most Stressful Jobs Ever, right up there with air traffic controller and person who does surgery on rich people's dogs. So yeah, kudos to you, black lady with glasses and hair bun.

That still doesn't mean I'm not going to be furious at you the next time I get a parking ticket.

Baby Monkey and Mama G

2009-08-03T11:56:00.000-07:00

Today's lazy but appropriate post: A story I wrote for Mothers' Day 2007. Enjoy!

Little Monkey and Mama Giraffe

There once was a happy Little Monkey, who lived in the jungle with her mother, Mama Giraffe. Mama Giraffe and Little Monkey had all kinds of fun together. When Mama Giraffe couldn’t reach the very tops of the trees, Little Monkey would climb to the highest branches and bring her the sweetest, greenest leaves. Mama Giraffe would sit very patiently while Little Monkey climbed up and down her very long neck just like it was a tree. Sometimes she would even walk around while Little Monkey held on very very tightly, only daring to look at the ground for a split second. Little Monkey loved this!

One day, Little Monkey went to the hippo pool to take a bath. Little Monkey liked to play with Herbert and Hessia Hippo, who were twin brother and sister. Herbert Hippo asked Little Monkey: “Why don’t you have a mother?”

“Shhhhh!” Hessia Hippo said to her brother. “Don’t be rude, Herbert.” She splashed her brother.

“Hessia, you’d better stop or I’m going to throw a piranha at you,” said Herbert.

But Little Monkey wasn’t listening. She was confused. “I do have a Mother, though. Mama Giraffe is my mother. Why would you think I don’t have a mother?”

“Hah!” said Herbert. “That’s impossible! Only giraffes can have giraffes for mothers. And monkeys are supposed to have monkeys for mamas, and Hippos,” he said, drawing himself up to his full height, which was rather short, since he was a hippo, “Have hippos for mamas.”

Little Monkey didn’t know what to say. She had never thought of this before. She felt like her whole world had just been turned on its head, like the bats that hung upside down from the trees to sleep.

“I guess I don’t know WHO my mama is then!” Said Little Monkey, sadly. Hessia Hippo could tell that Little Monkey was sad, so she tried to make her feel better.

“Maybe we can help you find your mother,” Hessia Hippo said.

Little Monkey thought that was a great idea.

Little Monkey and the Hippo twins looked all over the jungle. They looked under rocks, in tall trees, in lakes, and in the sky, but they could not find Little Monkey’s mama. “I’m sorry we couldn’t find her,” said Hessia, as the sun began to go down. “Maybe we can look again tomorrow?”

“I guess,” said Little Monkey. She was very sad as she said goodbye to her friends and began to head home.

“What’s wrong?” said Mama Giraffe, as Little Monkey was getting ready for bed.

“Nothing,” said Little Monkey, because she did not want Mama Giraffe to know why she was sad.

“You can’t fool me,” said mama Giraffe, and she tickled Little Monkey. Little Monkey was very ticklish, so this made her giggle a little monkey giggle.

“Ok, fine. I’ll tell you, but you have to promise not to be mad.”

Mama Giraffe promised. “Now what’s on your mind, my little monkey?”

Little Monkey sighed a big sigh. “If you’re my mama, how come you’re a giraffe and I’m a monkey? Herbert Hippo told me that Monkeys are supposed to have Monkey Mamas.”

“Didn’t Herbert Hippo also tell you that Hippos can jump 50 feet straight up in the air?”

“Yes.”

“And was that true?” Mama Giraffe asked.

“Well, no. But it is sort of funny, isn’t it? I mean, Herbert and Hessia look just like their mama, Hosephina, but you and I are as different as a tree and a rock!”

“That is true,” Mama Giraffe said patiently. “But tell me this: who makes sure you always have enough bananas to eat?”

“You do!” said Little Monkey, thinking of all the delicious bananas she had eaten that day and all the bananas she would eat the next.

“And,” continued Mama Giraffe, “Who tucks you into bed at night and sings you a lullaby to help you get to sleep?”

“You do…” said Little Monkey, who was starting to wonder where this was all going.

“And who teaches you to be nice to all the other jungle animals, and to share your bananas?”

“You do.”

“And what would you call somebody who makes sure you have bananas, tucks you in at night, and teaches you right and wrong?”

Little Monkey thought about this for a minute. “Well, I guess I would call that a mama.” Her face lit up. “That means you ARE my mama!”

“You are right, little monkey, I am your mama, because I take care of you, and I love you just like all mothers love their little monkeys.”

“I love you too, mama giraffe!” said little monkey, wrapping her little monkey arms around mama giraffe’s neck. And then Mama Giraffe tucked Little Monkey into bed, and they both slept soundly under the Jungle Moon.

The End

"Yes, but what about your REAL parents?"

2009-07-31T12:02:00.000-07:00

Those of you familiar with six-year-old Shannon know that I was a precocious child. That is to say, much more of a smart-ass than someone at that age has any right to be. Those of you who met me, say, 20 years later, I’m sure you can only imagine. I used to explain words to adults that I had just learned, thinking that, since I had previously been unaware of their existence, there were probably others out there in the same boat. Thus you would find me saying things to people about eight times my age like “This says EXPIRATION DATE. Do you know what an EXPIRATION DATE is?” And then, of course, I would explain to them what it meant. (The irony is that expiration dates now mean nothing to me, my boyfriend frequently asking things such as “Babe? Are these the eggs you just ate? They expired last week.” Whatever. They didn’t HATCH, did they? Then they’re ok. Sheesh.)

Anyway. When I entered into Kindegarten and First Grade, that meant interacting with a whole new social group, and lots of kids had questions about me being adopted. Of course they all KNEW I was adopted because I loved to offer up this information. I had learned quickly from reading books about superheros that superheros were either orphans (Batman and Robin) or came from some mysterious birth (Wonder Woman) or were, like me, adopted (Superman). I had not yet read Joseph Campbells “Hero with 1000 Faces” (actually I still haven’t, but that doesn’t mean I can’t talk about it at parties) which explains that the first step of any Hero’s Journey is that the Hero must have an unusual birth. Though I liked the idea of being sculped by an Amazon goddess and magically brought to life like Wonder Woman, and I also enjoyed wearing my Wonder Woman underwear around the house as if it were an outfit, I identified most with Superman.

For those of you who weren’t at Comicon last week, Superman was originally named Kal-el to Jor-el and some chick with an equally dorky name on the planet Krypton. Something bad happened to Krypton, like shit blowing up type bad, and, much like Moses, Jor-el and wife sent lil Kal-el in a magical space-basket to Earth, where he was found by Ma and Pa Kent. Ma and Pa Kent raise him as their own, try to keep it a secret from him that he’s a space alien, but then one day he starts flying and stuff and you guys know the rest.

It always seemed pretty obvious to me that Superman loved Ma and Pa Kent very much and thought of them as his parents. So it confused me, as six-year-old Shannon, when people asked me if I knew who my “real” parents were. Granted, these were other six-year-olds conversing with me so their vernacular was a little limited at the time, but I never missed the opportunity to give them my smart-ass answer: “Of course. I LIVE with them. DUH.”

It was always just a “duh” to me. I realize that not all adopted children were so lucky. I know some weren’t treated like “real” children or given all the love and Pontiac Sunfires they could ever need. I know that some adopted kids have been neglected, or made to feel less important than their brothers and sisters who are “natural children” of their parents. Not me, man. As early as I could remember, my parents had told me “Kelly” (my sister) “came from mommy’s tummy and you came from another lady’s tummy.” I was like, ok, that works. It made sense. And it was just one more think that made me different and special, so I wore it like a badge of honor.

But that doesn’t mean I’m not curious. Even superman went to his secret ice-cave and talked to the disembodied head of Marlon Brando. I still need to find my own disembodied head of Marlon Brando.

Book Reviews by...Oh, look, a ladybug!

2009-07-30T14:20:00.001-07:00

Summer is a great time for leisure reading. Whether it’s by the pool, on the beach, or on the 2’x2’ slab of concrete next to the dumpster behind my house, it just feels right. Here are some great summer reads to suit everyone’s taste:*

The Castaways: A Novel Hardcover by Elin Hilderbrand
Hilderbrand has a sort of whimsy to her writing that is at the same time clever and nostalgic, without ever being saccharine. Her imagery takes the reader to a simpler time. I couldn’t help but think of this one time, when my grandparents took me on this vacation in their motor home and the motor home was SO COOL especially, like if you were a little kid because it had bears ALL OVER it. Like, the seats all had these latch-hook seat covers shaped like bears and the pillows were bear heads and all of the corners of the cupboards or anything you could hit your head on had these little Koala Bears stuck to them with Velcro and I loved to take them down and play with them. I told my grandma that Koala Bears weren’t real bears, like Panda Bears, but she didn’t mind that I was a know-it-all because that’s just how grandma’s roll, you know?

Burn: A Novel
Linda Howard
Though Howard sets up a promising premise, the reader is left adrift sorting through the author’s web of loose ends. This is probably because the reader stopped reading at page 20 and started playing Bubbletown on Facebook.

Black Hills
Nora Roberts
Roberts is a master of both suspense and romance. Once again, in Black Hills, she does not disappoint. For example, page 82 has a really hot sex scene. Page 134 too. And, even though they don’t go all the way, I highly recommend pages 37, 46, 98, and 113. The rest of the book is probably good too but I couldn’t tell ya.

Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work
Short Stories by Jason Brown
This book has a really pretty cover. I think that people are really impressed when they see this book on my bookshelf because the title is so enigmatic and pretentious.

*I did not actually read any of these books so please don’t NOT read any of them because of anything I said here.

You Know Something Big Has Happened When I'm Speechless

2009-07-29T16:24:00.000-07:00

Holy crap, guys, holy crap. Holy crap sunday with an OMG cherry on top.

Today I learned the first names of my biological parents.

Yeah. I know. Big. Super big.

For those that don't know or weren't paying attention when I told you, I'm adopted. I hired a person called a "confidential intermediary" back in December. Her name is Judith and she's an adoptee too, I think. What she does is submits an application to the through which my adoption was processed asking that my file be unsealed. (Yes, I totally imagine it being in a back room in a crate a'la the arc of the covenant in Raiders of the Lost Arc.) She gets to see all the information and will try to locate them.

So, it's taken a while, but my file was just opened. And apparently, she is allowed to tell me their first names, which I was TOTALLY not expecting. Actually, I don't think I was ever expecting any of this to ACTUALLY happen. I'm still in a tizzy about it. I'm not going to post the names here because I'm not sure I'm ready to share with the whole wide world this new information, and also, it won't mean anything really to anyone but me so I'd like to keep it important and secret. I'll probably share eventually but right now I'm going to keep it wrapped up like a puppy in a towel in a shoebox (with holes poked in the lid, of course).

But wow - they're, like, real people! They have names! They exist! (Or, at least they did, hopefully both are still around and kicking.) I knew it was going to be a huge deal when I found out, but I was still so unprepared for how it would make me feel. I started laughing and crying at the same time when I read the email. It was a wonderful surprise. I have a feeling it's just the first of many surprises on what is going to be a fascinating and emotional journey.

Yes, I have lots of questions. Lots and lots. And yes, I'll be taking notes. Please forgive me if the ADHD blog gets hijacked for a while and becomes the Adoption Reunion blog. I have a feeling none of you will mind. :)

Je ne blog pa

2009-07-27T21:02:00.000-07:00

Sorry, no real post today. In lieu of real post, please meditate on the following interesting items:

-Our neighbors have a fruit tree in their front yard. I only ever see the fruit when it is small and green on the tree or big, yellow orbs, rotting on the ground. I wish I knew what sort of fruit it was.

-I gave my dog a bath last night and he doesn't necessarily smell good but he doesn't smell bad and I've caught myself smelling him several times tonight just to enjoy the not-bad smell.

-Last, and perhaps most exciting, I learned today that, when I order a coffee at work, and, for some reason this is only a medium coffee, when my barista rings me up and he chooses "small coffee" from the computer menu, it gives him the option to "add cheese."

Land of the Lost

2009-07-24T12:00:00.000-07:00

At any given time, there are usually 2 or 3 items I cannot use because they are "somewhere in my apartment." Repeat offenders (as if it's their fault and not the crazy lady who puts chicken in the knife drawer)include sunglasses, phones, credit cards (I don't know how this happens), hairbrushes, and items of clothing. Most of the time they "turn back up" at some point, which is why I'll say something nonchalantly like "Oh, yeah, sorry, can't go to the movies right now; I can't find my credit card." When the person I'm speaking to gasps in horror, I have to explain that it happens from time to time, that I'm like 99% sure it's in my apartment somewhere, and that I PROMISE to cancel the card if I don't find it in a few days. Of course, every time I've cancelled a card, it magically appears 48 hours later.

I used to tear my apartment up looking for things, and occasionally still will if it's something I need urgently or if I'm just in one of those "I can't stop 'till I find it" moods. People around me love these moods. Usually, these days, I adopt sort of a zen approach, which is "it'll turn up, eventually. It's as if the apartment is using it, and it will return the item when it is done with it. Perhaps the universe is witholding the items from me because I need to learn some sort of lesson (Usually "hey, lady, put your damn keys in the same place every day. Thank you. Signed, the universe.") I'm not a supersticious person but there does seem to be some magic attached to the items, because I can only find them when I am looking for something else.

At the current moment, I cannot find a) my wine opener, b) my headphones, or c) the cord that attaches my iPod to my computer. The somewhat frustrating thing about these items, besides the fact that drinking wine and listning to my iPod are both things very important to my overall wellbeing, is that I own at least TWO of each of these items. So there are two wine openers, two sets of headphones, and two iPod cords hiding somewhere in my actually quite small apartment. Yes, sometimes I even amaze myself.

Oh, and by the way, my iTunes gift card is not technically "lost" because I haven't tried looking for it yet, despite what my boyfriend might tell you.

A Brief Reenactment of my Relationship with Jack FM

2009-07-23T13:24:00.000-07:00

For those of you who live outside of LA, Jack FM (93.1) is a station that's been around a few years. I think a lot of other cities have something similar. Their "format," if you will, is "Playing what we want." As if there's a bunch of disgruntled peeps sitting around in a room saying to one another "hey, let's just say WTF and play THIS! Wow, that'll really blow people's minds!" But really, it's a mix of top 40 hits from the 80s and 90s along with some popular stuff from today and some strange oldies.

Here is a recreation of the rise and fall of esteem I once held for Jack FM:

Oh, wow, "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears. It's always good to hear a Tears for Fears song.

Wow, "Smells Like Teen Spirit," following Tears for Fears? That just blows my mind! That's cool that they'd play that back to back.

Ok, "Hotel California." I haven't heard that yet this year. That's my one Hotel California listen this year.

Hmmm, Goo Good Dolls. They suck. Oh well, I guess there's something for everyone here.

THE NEXT DAY

Hey, Tears for Fears again! They're neat.

Hey, another Nirvana song! Rad. Kurt was such a visionary.

Really? Hotel California? Again? Someone there must really like this station.

Wow, more Goo Goo Dolls, huh? Hmmm.

THE NEXT DAY

I am so sad that I hate Tears for Fears now.

You people don't deserve to play Nirvana.

LA LA LA LA You can check out any time you want, but you can never leave, LA LA LA LA LA

Baby's Black Balloon? What does that even mean?

Ok, that's it. What's playing on K Jazz?

Random Thought for the Day

2009-07-22T13:20:00.000-07:00

As if I have thoughts that aren't random.

I was just thinking of this as I walked to work this morning. When I was 19 or 20, I had to go to the doctor to get a physical in order to be a camp counselor that summer. The doctor examined me, asked me some questions, and then recorded his summation of my health into his little hand-held recorder. It was the standard "Subject is 19 year old female, blood pressure is blah blah blah" etc. Then he says "subject is of a cheerful disposition but is mildly overweight." He says, into his recorder, in FRONT of me, that I'm mildly overweight, but does not at any time say "Hey, btw, you might want to think of losing a few pounds.

Isn't that weird? Don't know why I just thought of that today.

One-sided conversations I have with my Dog

2009-07-21T09:07:00.000-07:00

Please don’t bark so loud, sweetie, mommy has a hangover.

What is that? What’s in your mouth? Give it! Give it! Ew, it’s squishy… you can keep it.

Mmmm, mommy’s ice cream is so yummy! Mmmmm, it’s delicious NO DON’T EAT THAT! STOP! STOP!

Yeah? Yeah? You wanna come in the bathroom with mommy? Ok. Yeah? You wanna go out? Ok. Yeah? Yeah? You wanna come in?

Please don’t stand on mommy’s hair, sweetie. Mommy has to get out of bed.

No no, people can see mommy’s underwear when you do that.

What is that? What are you eating? Is that your leg? Why would you want to eat your leg? Stop! Stop!

Do you know how many human males wish they could do what you’re doing right now?

Please don’t lick mommy’s mouth. Thank you.

Please don’t lick mommy’s nostril. Thank you.

Please don’t lick mommy’s eyeball. Thank you.

What? What do you want? Use your words! Oh, that’s right, you CAN’T, wah hahahahahha.

EWWWW you have some big eye boogers. Come here. Let me get that. Look at that – OH MY GOD, why would you eat that?

No, sweetie, we can’t poop there or we’ll get yelled at in Russian.

"Contents of Pockets Include only Pepper Spray and Dog Feces"

2009-03-20T18:00:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the super-fun economic what-have-you that's been going on, my cute, hipster neighborhood has been experiencing a major spike in crime. My car was recently broken into - something I was honestly surprised hadn't happened before given that I've lived in an apt w/no parking spot - as have a handful of my neighbors'. Worse, there have been several muggings since January, some of them violent. I actually have a neighbor who lives in my BUILDING who had a tooth knocked out. Yikes. I've lived in worse neighborhoods - supposedly "Brangelina" live just a couple of blocks up the street from me - but the amount of muggings combined w/the fact that one happened to someone I actually know is freaking me out.

A few months back I bought some pepper spray, which I am convinced I am going to somehow accidentally spray in my eye. Don't ask me how this would happen, all I know is that I've ended up with mustard on my forehead and underwear in my pant leg and I don't think that a self-inflicted ocular pepper spray attack is that unrealistic. To add to my paranoia, my friend (whose name I really can't print here and yes, that makes me feel special)who works for a certain government agency tells me that the pepper spray I purchased is three times stronger than that which his mysterious government agency supplies its agents with.

Also, I let the sales woman at the army surplus store talk me into the larger size. Why on earth would I need the larger size? Hopefully I'm never going to need to use this stuff, let alone twice. Certainly I should have time to go back to the army surplus in-between muggings.

I recently read an article in Psychology Today (my therapist confirmed that, no, therapists don't actually read Psychology Today, just "psychology enthusiasts," i.e., "crazy assholes" like me) about how criminals choose victims. Surprise, surprise, looking "distracted" is high on the list. Good thing I look like a menacing badass when I walk down the street. I mean, unless I see a butterfly. Or think about a poem I'd like to write. Or think about that one time in high school that my friend and I put banana peels all over the stairs thinking someone would walk by and think "Oh my GOD, how funny! You always see that in cartoons and stuff but someone ACTUALLY put banana peels all over the stairs!" and didn't think about the fact that putting banana peels on the stairs is actually really really dangerous and then I laugh out loud.

Anyway. Bananas. No, wait, muggings. So the article says that, while some people advocate talking on your cell phone or pretending to talk on your cell phone as a deterrent to would-be attackers, that doesn't really work. The inmates interviewed for this article said that someone talking on a cell phone is NOT a deterrent, but rather a signal that the person is distracted. This is good for me, because I can stop having pretend phone conversations that go like this:

"Hi, it's me... yeah, I'm almost there... oh, how funny, I can see you from here! Is that a new baseball bat you got?.... Wow, that was smart of you to put the nail through it like... oh, a railroad stake? Yeah, that makes sense, it was sort of larger and more deadly looking than a... what? Oh, that's cool, I'm glad your police friend Marvin is currently in your apartment, looking out the window with you, I've always wanted to meet your police friend Marvin... oh yeah? He's showing you his gun?... Wow, I didn't know those were legal...oh, yes, of course... no, I won't tell..."

According to one inmate quoted in the article, a person walking a dog is a deterrent. Even a little fluff ball thingy like Lando. A psychological principal called the "Yap Factor." This is good because, when I fear getting mugged, I'm actually more afraid that something will happen to my dog than I am that something will be stolen. I actually wondered once if it would be a good mugging deterrent to leave the dog poopy bag untied so I can hurl feces at a would-be mugger. I have also considered:

Stabbing someone in the face with my keys held fast between my knuckles

stabbing someone in the head with a high-heeled shoe that I have taken out of my bag, just in case I have to stab someone in the head

throwing up on someone (don't know if I could do this on cue - then again, maybe it would happen naturally)
pretending like I was schizophrenic (stole this idea from someone who says he has avoided a mugging by doing just that)

pretending I have syphilis
pretending I'm a Scientologist

Holding up a bible to make them feel bad for attacking a woman carrying a Bible, although I was not carrying a Bible for the reason most people would carry a Bible
kicking someone in the nuts (the classic)

So if you see me walkin by, and you want to say hello, and it is nighttime, consider identifying yourself first or you might just get stabbed in the head with a high-heeled shoe.

Every Now And Then, Bizarre Things Happen...

2009-03-11T20:22:00.000-07:00

This has nothing at all to do with ADD. I assume that's ok with you guys. This is just a random story about a mini tennis ball.

First of all, for context, here is a picture of Lando sitting next to a desk chair.

So, Lando has these tiny tennis balls he enjoys playing fetch with. The other night, I gave one a hearty bounce on my kitchen floor so that it would fly up in the air. Normally what happens next is it bounces a few times and Lando skitters all over the floor, nails scratching on the tile, trying to subdue the bouncing ball with his mighty, mini schnauzer mouth. Instead, this time, it bounced once, flew under my desk chair, and disappeared.

Upon further inspection, I realized that the ball had lodged itself between the chair and the lever you use to adjust the seat height.

Like this:

There was barely room, yet it was wedged in damn good, like that's where it belonged. Like that's where I kept my mini tennis ball when I wasn't using it. I guess, statistically, a mini tennis ball is bound to wedge itself inside the framework of a desk chair once out of every 500,000 throws or something.

Lando tried to get it out:

He gave it his best try.

It would not come out.

I took pity on him and removed the ball once it was clear he wasn't gonna move it on his own.

That's it. That's the ball story.

Please Stop Waving Your Light Saber At Me, Sir

2009-03-03T15:23:00.000-08:00

Arch nemesis to the AD/HD driver: Those valet parking guys waving neon flags or light sabers on the side of the street in the hopes that you will give up on looking for a parking spot and graciously accept their services.

Here's why I consider this a crime: their main purpose is actually to distract you while you are driving. You're driving down La Brea, hoping that the entitled BMW X5 driving next to you will back up a few inches to let you in, but they're not so you're trying to shove your car in front of theirs in the hope that they would rather let you in than pay for body work. At the same time, you're trying the read the bumper sticker on the car in front of you - you can't tell if it's ironic or just stupid. "Save a Cow: Eat a Vegan." Dirty, maybe? You try to gather contextual clues from the bumper stickers around it. They seem to be a Blink 182 fan. Well, that could really go either way. At the same time, you just heard on NPR that some famous old actor just died and you think, "Man, I totally thought he was dead already..."

Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, there's a dude frantically waiving an orange neon flag at you and gesturing for you to turn right. IMMEDIATELY.

Thanks to evolution, the human brain is hard-wired to think the following things upon seeing this:

Turn right immediately or die
You are about to run over a puppy
Your baby is strapped to the top of your car
Hey man, there's a cop around the corner and it's not even a regular cop, it's one of those CHP assholes on a motorcycle
Please help me; I need to get my baby to a doctor

Here's what the guy waving the flag is really trying to tell you:

Expensive parking!

Let's not reward this sort of behavior, folks.

There Is Absolutely Nothing Funny in this Post

2009-02-24T15:55:00.000-08:00

So, for about...hmmm... seven months now, yikes, I have been "meaning to get back to my blog." And for at least the last three weeks, I've been stressing about what my first blog "back" should be, like I'm Norma Desmond or something.

Thus, I decided to create this post, just to make me feel like I'm posting again. Therefore, this post has no content, no jokes, and no reason for you to go on reading it. And yet, here you are, still reading it. How does that make you feel?

Ok, that's all. But I really will post again. Really! I'm carving it into my skin with the end of a paperclip right now. It's pretty dull so it's going to leave a messy scar. So, even if I don't keep my word and update the blog again, I'm going to feel just awful about it for a long time.

Are you there God? It’s me… wait, I’m sorry, who did I call again?

2008-07-03T14:55:00.000-07:00

I have to admit something, which is: once I started on this series of posts about the 5 steps of acceptance of one’s ADHD diagnosis, I got bored with it and wanted to write about something else. One of the ever-increasing number of ironies attached to ADD – “I’m bored and don’t want to keep writing about the same thing in my ADD blog.” Or “I keep meaning to work on my ADD blog but I just can’t stop procrastinating.” Or “I have a really great idea for my ADD blog but I can’t find it! It was just here a minute ago! Ok I remember the phone rang and then I set it down and then I picked up my hairbrush…oh damn it all to hell!”

Who is this on my internet radio? Is this Kate Bush? She is so weird. Oh, no, someone else. Whoever it is, I haven’t heard of her but she has a weird Kate Bush-type voice. That’s what I get for listening to the folk station I guess.

But yes, back to ADD diagnosis and the havoc it can play with your brain/life/loved ones/amazon.com account. So far ADD has brought us relief, denial, anger, irresponsibility, and guilt. Let’s see what else is in store, shall we?

Step Four:
ADD IS COMPLETELY MADE UP - JUST ONE OF THE LIES I HAVE BEEN TELLING MYSELF

Somewhere in my progression towards acceptance of my diagnosis, I became extremely fearful that ADD wasn’t real. I can’t tell you how but it somehow spun out of me being relieved that I had it combined with being embarrassed of my symptoms. I was suddenly so aware of all of the little nutty things that I did through the day than I had been before the diagnosis and therefore so grateful that this new awareness came with an explanation for all the little nutty things. I clung to this so much that I became paranoid that I was going to lose it – ADD was my safety raft from having ADD. It didn’t make sense but then my brain didn’t really either.

I think this sprang from me trying to find a balance between my 2nd and 3rd stages of diagnosis. I had realized that I couldn’t just say “Sorry, I have ADD” every time I did something spacey or inconsiderate, but I also was trying to stop beating myself up when my symptoms appeared. I was working on having a “kinder self-dialogue.” (Yes, I got that phrase from my shrink.) But my self-dialogue has always had a bully side to it. It’s the side that would make me think about Freddy Krueger when I was 8 and alone in my dark bedroom telling myself “Don’t think about Freddy Kruger. Don’t think about Freddy Krueger. Damnit, why am I thinking about Freddy Krueger?” This “Wah ha!” part of my brain started pointing and laughing and saying things like “You’re so pathetic. It doesn’t matter how many books you read or how many hippies tell you to feel good about yourself; this is all a lie made up by drug companies to make money. You’re just buying into it because you don’t want to take responsibility for your lost credit cards and your messy bedroom.”

My head-bully is so mean, right? But my mean head had help, because a lot of people – people who don’t live in my head – don’t believe that ADD is real (unlike the people in my head, who are very real). Or they think people with ADD shouldn’t be medicated. Or they think that it’s over-diagnosed. I actually had a conversation with an HR person at a former job of mine who TOLD me “You know, I really don’t know anything about ADD.” After we had talked about it for a while, me feeling so great that I was spreading knowledge and understanding, she finished by saying “But you have to admit; it does get over-diagnosed all the time.” She didn’t know what it was, but she did know that it was over-diagnosed. She didn’t know what was being over-diagnosed! I really hate it when people have really strong (and, in this case, redundant) opinions on things they don’t know anything about.

People really seemed to feel very strongly about whether or not ADD existed. Especially people who didn’t have ADD and didn’t know anyone who had ADD (sort of like Gay marriage…). Blogs were dedicated to the subject. The internet was full of postings on “health news” sites about it’s illegitimacy. The fervor was nearly religious. I suppose I can see how, if you thought there was a disorder that was made up just to sell drugs that are mostly given to children, it would get your blood pumping a bit. But time and time again the people who were so adamant about denying its existence seemed to be people who didn’t understand it at all. They also didn’t understand that the medication was not a sedative to knock out hyperactive kids but actually a stimulant to help them focus when they weren’t getting enough or the right kind of stimulation.

Anyway. There were all too many voices out there to fuel my nasty self-dialogue. But I researched. I read. I went to support groups. I met people. I talked to friends. And I finally realized that, whatever angry ADD-haters said, the only part of ME that didn’t believe my ADD was real was the part that wasn’t ready to accept myself and like myself. Once I was ready to do that, I stood up on the mountain top and proclaimed:

Step Five:
CAN YOU PLEASE EXPLAIN WHAT ADD IS AGAIN? I DON'T THINK I WAS REALLY PAYING ATTENTION THE FIRST TIME...

One could also call this step “synthesis.” It was me stopping swinging from the extremes and learning to balance my approach to my ADD. Now I walk a sort of tightrope when I examine a certain symptom of my ADD. A tightrope that is very short so that I don’t bang my head or get rope burn when I frequently fall off and need to get back up again. For example: I have one messy-ass apartment. Really, if you’ve come over to my apartment and thought it was clean, that’s because I ran around for a half-hour before you got there and stuffed everything in the closet/bathroom/car. So I’ll come home and look at my apartment and say “Jesus, who lives like this? Oh yeah, me…” But I try to remember that I have a certain brain chemistry that, for some reason, makes me want to “organize” using the “pile system.” I don’t know why this is but almost every other person I know with ADD also has “piles” in their house. It cracks me up because it’s almost like you can tell who we are from our footprints or our scat. So I tell myself “You know what, organizing and consistency are not the easiest thing in the world for me.” However, I don’t leave it at that, because I don’t WANT the apartment to be messy. I don’t want to use the ADD as an excuse – maybe I’ll give myself a break and realize that it doesn’t need to be perfectly clean. Maybe I’ll look for a fun way to clean it or ask for help cleaning it. But the important thing is that I stop saying to myself either “This place SHOULD be clean” or “I can’t clean this place. I have ADD. It’ll always be a mess.”

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to find something to do to distract me from cleaning my apartment.

You're Not Crazy; You're Just Big Boned

2008-06-11T16:13:00.000-07:00

Did I say next week in the last post? I’m so sorry… I meant next…uh… Winter Olympics… sometimes my MS Word automatically corrects Winter Olympics to say…

Ok, so, it’s been a few weeks. But guess what – IT’S NOT MY FAULT, BECAUSE I HAVE…ADD!!! Just kidding. Thought I don’t have an excuse for not posting because excuses should be saved for really important things like not coming to work when U2 is in town and your friend just spotted Bono at the Hilton. But I do have an “extenuating circumstance.” This extenuating circumstance has been taking up all my lunch breaks and waking me up at 1, 3, 5, or 7 am each day. No, it’s not a baby – I mean, seriously, I would probably just leave that thing on top of my car with my coffee the first time I took it home from the hospital.

No, he is Lando, a rescue dog from a great company called Dogs Without B orders. He was supposed to be a foster dog (my boyfriend Barry called him “Bananas Foster” for a while) but after the first hour he was in our house I secretly decided to keep him and then tricked my boyfriend into wanting to keep him over the next few days. But really, he is – and I’m going to speak in 16 year old girl language here so you may need a translator – he is like soooooo the cutest thing EVER! OMG! He is totally cuter than if there were a Muppet that was like, a llama. Only he were a blind llama from Myanmar and he had just lost his whole family so you’d always be like “Awwwww, poor blind Muppet llama!” Anyway. He’s super great.

Ok so anyway, back to talking about not taking responsibility for our own actions. To briefly recap, we were discussing the five steps of processing through one’s ADD diagnosis. Step One was WHAT A RELIEF! THIS EXPLAINS SO MUCH! I’m glad I have shared this step with all of you because all of these great stories that came out that you’d be much too embarrassed to share if you couldn’t blame them on ADD. Which brings us (after about six weeks…) to Step Two:

STEP TWO: IT’S NOT MY FAULT, I HAVE ADD
This is the step where you will probably tell way more people than necessary that you have ADD. Like the guy in line behind you at the bank who’s mad because you’re talking on your cell phone and didn’t notice the next teller was open. For 10 minutes. Simply turn to him and say “I have something called ADD.” You may want to say it very slowly in case he has never heard of ADD before. You can then explain to him, and the several people standing in line behind him, that you have a condition that is no way your fault any more than it is his fault that he was born looking like that. Briefly outline the major symptoms of ADD including pros and cons of having it, and be sure to include a list of famous people with the disorder. You may now proceed to the next open teller.

You will notice feeling much lighter, as if you have just been absolved of all of your sins. Be sure to mentally forgive yourself for every time you were late to a meeting, lost your tax information, or forgot your lover’s sobriety birthday. In fact, if you have had several lovers at one time that did not know about one another, that’s not your fault either because you have a proclivity towards exciting new things and besides, if they ever said anything about not dating other people, you probably forgot it and that’s not your fault either.

When you go home and notice that your house is a disaster, don’t fret. How could it possibly be clean? You have ADD. It’s not your fault! Just add that pile of mail to the top of that other pile that is either your compost or your tax information. When your mother comes to visit and faints on top of a pile of bank overdraft fee notices, tell her there’s nothing you can do about it. I mean, when she had that herpes breakout, you didn’t hold her personally responsible for every little blister and bump, did you?

This statement will probably bring you crashing directly into…

STEP THREE: OH S***, I’M RETARDED
Now, we all know that it’s not nice to call someone retarded. But then, it’s much easier to say things to yourself that you wouldn’t say to someone else. And if you say it in your own head, it’s not like someone is going to track you down and say “Hey, you know what? My brother has downs syndrome. You really shouldn’t say that.”

But seriously. In our culture, or, in my culture, I should say, which would be white people born after 1975, if you want to say something is dumber and more ridiculous than anything else you can think of, you call it THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION. Oops sorry, that one just kinda slipped away. You call it “retarded.” Or other people call it retarded, if you’re going to pretend that you never say that. And so that’s what I said to myself when I went into Step Three.

Suddenly, now that I knew that I had ADD, I couldn’t go through an hour without noticing things that I was forgetting, messing up, or losing because I had ADD. I did a 180 and stopped feeling like it was a free ticket but more of a great big boulder I had to carry with me everywhere. Or like a dorky cousin that my mom made me take to my friend’s birthday party. Or like that weird red spot on my shoulder that appeared after my 24th birthday and thought would probably disappear but hasn’t yet but I’m too embarrassed to show to a doctor. That’s what having ADD felt like.

(Pause for sympathetic coddling noises.)

I saw ADD in everything I did, even if it were something someone else without ADD would do, something totally reasonable that didn’t even matter anyway. Instead of being easier on myself for little goofs because of my new diagnosis, I tried to eliminate any and all goofs so that no one would notice. Which was stupid because I had just spent the last 3 weeks telling everyone I knew that I had ADD.

I started to notice how often ADD was mentioned negatively in everyday conversation or in pop culture. A cop told another cop on a TV show that it looked like the report he filed had been written by someone who forgot to take his Ritalin. Someone at work would mention a problem client of ours and say “I think there’s something seriously wrong with him, like, maybe he even has ADD or something.”

Oh my god, there is something seriously wrong with me!

The other un-fun (or doubleplusunfun for the Orwell fans) thing about this stage is that the way people around me reacted to me started to make me feel retarded. (I should say “I chose to let them make me feel retarded.”) Since I had told everyone I knew about my diagnosis, you know, to absolve me of all the mistakes I was making, they didn’t know exactly why I had told them and what I expected from them now that they knew. So people began asking if I needed more time, some reminders, a checklist, etc. A lot of the time, these things were actually helpful. But, even though I was just learning that I did best in life when I had some sort of external structure in place, I still wanted to do everything “All by myself.” And I was starting to hate the diagnosis and didn’t want to be reminded of it all the time.

This is probably what led me to…

Tune in next week for steps four and five; the exciting conclusion to Shannon’s journey through her ADD diagnosis!

Non-sequitur of the day: Ok, this is sort of a sequitur, I just didn’t know where else to put it. It’s not my fault, I have…nevermind. Anyway. So I don’t know what stage this was exactly, probably all five, but one of the things that came along with my diagnosis was that I talked about ADD ALL THE TIME. It was like when I was a little kid and I was like “Did you know that Michelangelo is the one who has the nunchucks and he likes pizza the most but really they all like pizza and I think that Michelangelo is the coolest except I also like Donatello because his mask is purple and I wish the Michelangelo’s mask was purple cuz I don’t really like orange.”

Except now it was like “Did you know that people with ADD have a tendency of being more naturally empathetic than other people? I’ll bet that’s why I’m so empathetic… most people don’t even know what the difference between empathetic and sympathetic is… Also people with ADD tend to have more vivid dreams than other people. I’ll be that explains why…” blah blah blah, you get the idea.

So this one morning I was driving my boyfriend into work – my poor boyfriend who bore the brunt of all of the ADD stream-of-consciousness hyper-babble – and I was regaling him with yet another fact that he didn’t care about from one of my many ADD books when I interrupted myself with this: “Oh my god, look at ALL of those bike cops! Why do you think there are so many bike cops in one place? Do you think it’s a training exercise or something? Have you noticed that bike cops usually seem to think they’re such hot s***?” That was when I looked over and noticed my boyfriend laughing so hard it was inaudible, which was why I didn’t notice that he had been laughing since the moment I interrupted myself talking about ADD to have a little ADD moment.

Congratulations! You have ADD!

2008-05-21T17:43:00.000-07:00

My apologies for taking so long to post again. I found that relying on myself to post “about every week” was just not enough structure for me so I have a new system in place. I have asked my best friend Jen to harass/cajole/guilt/and otherwise mother every week to I get my blog together. So, thanks Jen! It has becoming more and more clear lately how important it is for me to have friends who will help me put some structure and routine into my life. It took a while to realize it, or maybe I did realize it but just didn’t want to ask.

I wanted also to thank all of you for reading, commenting on, and sharing the blog. I’ve received a lot of really interesting feedback on it. Some ADD peeps totally recognized themselves it, and, some NON-add people said they can really relate too. I think that's awesome, and, really, everyone has some of the symptoms of ADD some of the time. The ADD'ers have them more frequently and intensely. One thing that has been really interesting is that I have had several people "admit" to me that they too have ADD, and I had no idea! Some of them have been recently diagnosed and some a while back but couldn't really accept the diagnosis. It's kind of wacky how many ADD peeps are living in the (messy, cluttered and disorganized) ADD closet.

With that in mind, I decided it might be a good topic to talk about what it’s like to receive that all-important ADD diagnosis. I got mine a little over a year ago. I’m making it sound like the stork dropped on my doorstep or I found it in a box of Wheaties. What I mean is that that I sought out a Psychiatrist to test me for it because I had been wondering for some time if I might have it. And then SHE gave me the box of Wheaties and the diagnosis was in THAT. Just kidding.

It may seem sort of strange that I didn’t think to ask anyone about this until I was 27. In fact it was really strange for me to learn this at that age. There were some signs back in the day that might have led me to believe I had ADD and there were some signs that conflicted. I’ll get more into that later because I want to focus (yes! I am focusing on something!) on post-diagnosis stuff today.

(Side note, aka “digression”: Yesterday I started writing this blog when I was giving myself a “day off” from Ritalin, and I produced three pages of rambling material that even I was bored with upon reading later. Sometimes I think that not taking my crazy pills will make me more “free thinking” and “creative” but yesterday it was just “spastic” and “Someone you would not want to get stuck sitting next to on a trans-continental flight.”)

Being diagnosed with ADD, especially after walking around this planet for a while thinking you don’t have it, is an interesting and conflicting thing to happen to a person. A chick named Sari Solden has a great book called "Women with Attention Deficit Disorder." She also may or may not like being referred to as a “chick.” (By the way, she has a great website that has a checklist, for males or females, to see if you may have ADD. Here’s the link: http://www.sarisolden.com/html/screen.html. Be warned that you probably will feel like you have ADD after reading this, even if you don’t.)

This chick, Sari, says that a person will go through the stages of grief (denial, bargaining, anger, depression and acceptance) when she is diagnosed. I found this to be partly true, but didn’t feel it encompass the entire scenario. I would like to propose a new list of “Stages of Acceptance” of one’s ADD diagnosis. In this post, I will introduce the five steps, and go into more detail of step one. I will finish steps 2-5 in subsequent posts (assuming I am able to finish what I started).

Step one:
WHAT A RELIEF! THIS EXPLAINS SO MUCH!

Step Two:
IT'S NOT MY FAULT - I HAVE SOMETHING CALLED ADD

Step Three:
OH S***; I'M RETARDED!
(Yes I’m a jerk for using this word. Stick with me and I’ll explain why I use it but also know that I will still seem a little jerky.)

Step Four:
ADD IS OBVIOUSLY COMPLETELY MADE UP - JUST ONE OF THE LIES I HAVE BEEN TELLING MYSELF

Step Five:
CAN YOU PLEASE EXPLAIN WHAT ADD IS AGAIN? I DON'T THINK I WAS REALLY PAYING ATTENTION THE FIRST TIME...

Let us dissect these steps in more detail. Know that, in your own progression, you may not follow the steps in this exact order, and you may go through one step a number of times before you move past it.

Let us now take a closer look at Step One: What a relief! This explains so much.
As I mentioned earlier, I sought out a doctor to screen me for ADD. The most common way of testing a person for ADD is discussing their personal history, why he or she thinks she may have ADD, and asking a list of comprehensive questions. After answering about fifty questions, my doc added up the total and pronounced “A score that indicates some presence of ADD is a 22. You scored 45. Looks like you have ADD!” Wait – go back – what? I don’t know what I was expecting her to say. I guess something like “It appears you have some tendencies, go read such-and-such book, etc.” Nope. I really had it and it seemed like there wasn’t really a grey area.

In fact, when she was asking me the questions, I actually laughed out loud a few times. Because, you see, I am insane. No, I laughed because I recognized myself SO much in those questions. Do I get excited about a project and then quit once the fun part is finished? Well, yes, but isn’t that just because I’m an evil genius? Do I frequently realize I haven’t been listening to someone even though they are speaking directly to me? Well, yes, but my own thoughts are just so much more interesting than what most people are saying, unless they are on TV, and then it could go either way. And did I often find myself making lots of small mistakes on a project if it was repetitive or tedious? Again, yes, but also again, that’s just because I’m a super-genius just like those Stanford Professors who need their spouses to set out a pair of matching socks for them before they go to work. And yes – I think everyone does these things to some extent. As I mentioned earlier, it’s only ADD if you do these things consistently, perhaps to the point where it is starting to hold you back in life.

That was the first of many moments that I realized that it really HAD been holding me back. I was not worried or scared right away when I heard the diagnosis. I was just relieved. There was a name for what the heck was “wrong” with me. And there were books to read and support groups to go to and conferences to attend – oh, I was having so much fun already!

The first thing I did after leaving my doctor’s office was call my family. “Guess what! It’s not my fault that I’m a total screw up! Yaaaay! I have a disorder. You now have to feel sorry for me, not blame or get angry or frustrated with me.” Oh, life was going to be sweet. But more about renouncing responsibility and embracing personal absolution in step two.

I immediately went to Amazon.com to buy a book to help me come to terms with my new diagnosis. Instead, I bought three. I would get bored with one, pick up another, put that one down, and then go to the third. My friend Josh said “If I were going to write a movie about someone with ADD, that would be the perfect scene.” It did encapsulate the madness both succinctly and cinematically. But I could laugh at that now! And the more I read about in the books, the more other things from my past I could laugh at.

Remember at the end of the movie “The Sixth Sense” when Bruce Willis finds out he’s a ghost and has all these flashbacks? So that’s why my wife was ignoring me. I’m dead! Good, I thought it was just me! I too had a series of forehead-smiting, gee-that-makes-so-much-sense-now flashbacks. I went back to age six: my mom lays my clothes out for me so that I can get ready for church. About 20 minutes later she comes back to discover that I have been staring at my face really close up in the mirror for 20 minutes. I flash forward to age 25, where I am counting money in the till at Ann Taylor where I work as a manager. Every time my co-worker talks to me I have to start over from the beginning. When I ask him to be quiet for a moment, he says “That’s ok, l have trouble with math too.” I learn that people with ADD will seek strange forms of stimulation, including making a situation more dramatic than it needs to be or provoking people for no reason. Suddenly it makes a little more sense that I told Glenna that Meredith said that she was acting like a slut at her 12th birthday party at the Rollerina Skating Party even though she never said that and I didn’t really know what a slut was. Huh, it’s all so clear now.

Join us next week when we discuss steps two and three! In the meantime, you can practice them by not taking responsibility for things that are your responsibility, and taking responsibility for things that aren’t!

The Irony and the ADD

2008-05-04T20:00:00.000-07:00

New bulletin: I cannot spell "bulletin" correctly. It is now fixed in my last post so you can't check to see how I spelled it, unless you are my BFF who pointed it out to me. Thanks Jen. By the way, you have something in your teeth.

So speaking of my BFF, about a year ago, when I was first diagnosed with ADD, I had this one crazy "ADD-Related" day (oh, aren't they all?) when I forgot to refill my Ritalin prescription, and wrote her a big email about how ironic having ADD can be. She pointed out that that my stressed-out rantings about ADD were actually pretty amusing (to her anyway, she doesn't have to live with it EVERY DAY! (Throws self down onto pillow, weeps)). That was originally when I had the idea about writing an ADD blog. And look, it only took me 11 more months to follow up!

Unfortunately, or, perhaps, predictably, I lost the email I wrote her and apparently everyone I sent email to is NOT saving everything I write to them in case I die suddenly and they need to pull some material together for my posthumous book release but I guess not everyone thinks like I do.

But anyway. My point, ehem, is that I wanted to post that email today but I'm just going to have to try my best to recreate it. I say this in case Oprah ever reads this and accuses me of "exaggerating" my ADD for sensationalization. If there is an error, I apologize. I still maintain, however, that my former posts of how I overcame alcoholism without AA and how I grew up in south central LA are 100% true. (Sorry, that's probably a writer in-joke...)

But first, let me say that I think that having ADD is probably one of the most irony-riddled "disorders" out there. It's like the equivalent of if you had cancer, but your chemotherapy drugs were destroyed by basal-cell melanoma. Or if you were narcoleptic and...um.......you know what, this metaphor is going nowhere. And I really need to stop comparing ADD to cancer. I mean, those lucky cancer bastards get CURED at some point, ADD is way worse. Ba-dum, ching...

It's ok, I'm sure god will give me cancer at some point for that last comment. So what I'm saying is that irony abounds in ADD. Example: you need to take a pill that helps you stay focused and remember to do things, but, well, you're unfocused and forget things so you forgot to take your pill. Or you go to an ADD support group but you never get to talk because everyone else there has ADD and talks on and on and on and on and everyone interrupts everyone else and gets off the topic so no progress is ever made. OR you think "Hey, I'm going to order this new ADD book about organization online from amazon.com!" and then you're cleaning your apartment and find, under a stack of unread mail, the organization book that you bought 3 months ago and forgot about.

Or, (*cough cough*) probably the best way for you -- and when I say you, i mean me -- to deal with your ADD is to write a funny blog about it, but you are lazy and unorganized and don't post for like a month....ehem. I know I shouldn't label myself as lazy but really, I am. Not all people with ADD are lazy. And yes, sometimes it seems like I am lazy but really it just takes me a few extra hours to do something because I forget why I started doing it or I get distracted by staring at my pores in the mirror. But also, I am lazy.

But I digress! (sorry...so hard NOT to say it...) Here is a recreation of some day in spring 2007 when I forgot to (or was lazy and just didn't) refill my Ritalin Rx.

• Wednesday morning: Realized I am freaking out of Ritalin and that I’d better get that Rx refilled or I’ll be in trouble.
• Take Rx to drugstore on lunch break intending to pick it up after work so I’ll have it for tomorrow morning.
• Forget to go to drugstore after work.
• Wake up Thursday morning, realize I do not have Ritalin. Try my hardest to get my butt out the door so I can pickup Rx before work.
• Remember that this is the day I’m supposed to go to a time-management seminar that my boss suggested I take when I told her I was recently diagnosed w/ADD.
• Scold self for not writing time-management seminar in day planner.
• Realize I have not used my day planner since 2006 so technically I don’t have a working day planner.
• Go to drugstore. Make feeble joke with Armenian Pharmacist Lady about how spacey I am because I didn't have my Ritalin Rx.
• Think to myself that pharmacists never really get drug humor.
• Unknowingly leave keys at pharmacy counter.
• Am now late for time-management seminar.
• Realize that building I thought time-management seminar is not where I thought it would be.
• Scold self for not writing down location of time-management seminar in imaginary day-planner.
• Walk into time-management seminar. Am not surprised most other people are late as well.
• Sit through incredibly boring time-management seminar that mostly revolves around making lists and writing things down in a day planner.
• Go back to work for 2nd half of the day.
• Walk to car.
• Look for keys.
• Look for keys more carefully.
• Look for keys again, this time emptying contents of purse out on hood of car, turning out pockets, and looking in car ignition.
• Walk back to office, hoping to find keys along the way somewhere.
• Go back into office, look in desk.
• Call campus security to ask them if anyone found a set of keys. Get recorded message asking me to leave my name and number and promising to get back to me by the end of the week.
• Leave cell phone number in message as instructed.
• Realize cell phone is locked in car.
• Wonder if I should just take the bus home and wonder if my car will get towed if I leave it in the university parking lot all night.
• Weep.
• I mean, internally.
• Like, for a half a second.
• Walk back to car, looking in all gutters, bushes, homeless people’s piles of stuff, and then under car for keys.
• Try very, very hard to remember everything I did that day.
• Reflect that time-management seminar was, ironically, a waste of time.
• Remember I am trying to remember where my keys are.
• Suddenly, after quieting down brain sufficiently, remember going to the drugstore.
• Race back to drugstore, ask about keys.
• Get handed keys by un-smiling Armenian Pharmacy Lady (has she been here all day?).

Still think cancer is all that bad? Just kidding. I shouldn’t joke, lest cancer karma catch up with me. I mean, can you imagine that? I would always be, like, leaving my cancer scarf at home and have to go to some meeting all bald and stuff, or like, forget to pick up my medicinal marijuana from the “clinic.” I’d probably get all excited about arranging all these cancer support groups and then lose interest and everyone would be all “but what about the cancer support group?” and I would be all “Jeeze, I can’t organize EVERYTHING, I have cancer for christ sake!”

Non-sequiter of the day: I love how when you post a comment on someone's myspace page it will sometimes tell you "awaiting approval." I mean, aren't we all? At the same time, I am somewhat resentful when my computer solitaire gives me the option, once I have lost yet another solitaire game, to "deal." Who the hell are you to tell me to just "deal," computer? But I always do.

BULLETIN: PERSON WITH ADD ACTUALLY GETS SOMETHING DONE FOR ONCE

2008-04-11T15:43:00.000-07:00

If you have ADD, you probably understand how proud I was when I finally made myself sit down to write the title for my first ever entry to my blog.

And here I am, a mere six hours later, writing the blog. Everyone clap! Sorry -- don’t clap; I don’t want you to get distracted from reading. Someone’s liable to walk in the room in a few minutes to see you clapping and ask you what the hell you’re doing and you won’t remember.

But hey, if they’ve known you long, they probably won’t think much of it. (Unless you are also yelling “YAY!” at the same time, in which case you’ve just convinced them you have a bit more than ADD.) Anyway. Sorry. I digress!

Ok don’t worry I’m not going to make “But I digress!” some sort of tagline. I don’t have a bicycle horn here that I honk every time get to say “But I digress!” I have, in fact, had the idea of this blog for many months, have had ideas half-formed in my brain for that long, and have had the title in my head probably much longer. The point is, it really was a pain in my ass to make myself actually sit down and write this thing. And look, I’m having so much fun already! Really! It’s fun. Even though I just writing this now, I am picturing all of you thousands of happy ADD people out there, reading this and saying “Oh my god; that is just like me!”

Because, let’s face it. There is only so much someone can do to “treat” ADD. Yes, I have about seven or eight books on the subject, some very good, some I even read all the way through. And by all the way through, I mean parts from the front of the book AND the back! But after the meds, the therapy, the fish oil, the exercise, the brain-building activities, and the purchase of many different day planners, you are still going to have some shitty days. You’re going to forget to do something really important at work, you’re going to bounce a check, you’re going to lose that last ADD book you just bought under a pile of “to-do” action items and accidentally buy a second copy. You’re going to…ok, I think it’s fairly obvious I’m actually talking about myself here, so let me share some real situations. One time I got a chicken breast out of the fridge, got a knife out of a drawer, cut up the chicken, put the chicken in a little baggy, and then put the chicken in the knife drawer. Another time I was getting ready for the day and took the cap off of a tube of toothpaste, squirted the toothpaste onto my finger, held my eye open, and then suddenly realized I was about to put toothpaste in my eye as if it were my contact.

My point is a) having ADD can sometimes suck, no matter how much therapy you have. And b) (making lists helps me keep my thoughts organized) ADD is actually quite funny. When I was first diagnosed, about a year ago, I did a google search on for “ADD” and “Humor.” I was really hoping to find a hilarious book or blog about ADD that would just help me “deal.” Something I could laugh at when I had had a long day. But there was nothing! Nothing, at least, that I am aware of… I got bored after searching for a while.

So here you go! If you have ADD, if your roommate/spouse/child/barista has ADD, or if you enjoy laughing at others’ problems, stop here for your heapin’ helpin’ of weekly ADD-related humor. And if you made it this far, NOW it is safe to clap your hands and yell “YAAAAAY!” Just take that football helmet off your head or someone is really gonna start to wonder.