Two Years Ago Today

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!

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

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

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

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

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.

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!