The subject.I woke up a short time ago. I slept much longer than I had planned. There was one dream about going cycling with a girl I've had a crush on since elementary school and another about Spider-girl having the venom symbiote, or something. I don't really remember. Things are still hazy. This will be fun.
Whenever I have a dream about someone, I feel compelled to tell them the next day. It's a weird compulsion, I know. I usually resist the temptation to write something retarded on their FaceSpace wall, although I write foolish things on everyone's walls, including my own. Given that I am blogging about it now, it is clear: I have no established custom regarding my stupidity. In any case, I imagine that it would not be as flattering to tell a pretty girl that I had a dream featuring her as I would like to imagine.
In short, I have no idea what girls want, aside from proper dental hygiene.
Fortunately, I can take solace with my heterogametic brothers; no one knows! It is a scientific mystery! I am referring to the Nature special I watched last night, What Females Want. The second half, What Males Will Do, is on next Sunday and I encourage you to watch the spectacle of showboating and rejection throughout the animal kingdom. The bower bird remains a personal favorite of mine.
Females, as always, remain free to contact me for the purpose of enlightenment.
I had an exciting day yesterday. I went on a date with a lesbian yesterday. This is not entirely true, but I love heuristics and it makes for a better story. Especially the part where we went to Powell's and she asked me what kind of books I like and I while I was at a loss, she quickly volunteered that she was a fan of books found in the purple section. She also found my use of Heelys absolutely hilarious and we had a conversation about the amazing belt buckle knife and local gun law. I shall stop my description here, because I am a gentleman. I am very glad I participated in this experience if for no other reason than replay value, a phrase I am using in the wrong context. Also, it was enjoyable. A date with a lesbian is the gift that keeps on giving.
After this I went to debrief with a friend. His response was, of course, to repeatedly shake his head and say, "I can't believe you went on a date with a lesbian," while we played Guitar Hero and cruised the FaceSpace. He must have said that at least fifteen times while we talked about how hot Kari Byron is. He also tried to teach me the proper use of FaceSpace, or at very least, check profiles more thoroughly. I'll get right on it.
"Masturbation is common in the animal kingdom ... We have a Darwinist mentality that all animals only have sex to procreate. But there are plenty of animals who will masturbate when they have nothing better to do. Masturbation has been observed among primates, deer, killer whales and penguins, and we're talking about both males and females. They rub themselves against stones and roots. Orangutans are especially inventive. They make dildos of wood and bark."I'm no primatologist, but it seems like the bonobos still have a leg-up. I'll finish this up with the specific quote from this account of Borneo so you don't have to read the whole thing to get to the action:
When Mr. Scott and Mrs. Ann neared the camp, they saw an orangutan--Apollo Bob--who seemed to want to play. He wrestled with Mrs. Ann a bit and she thought it was innocent fun, until he grabbed her by both ankles and jerked her to the ground and started to mount her. Mr. Scott tried to pull him off, but orangutans are real strong. He said later it made him understand how horrible it must be to witness your wife or girl friend being raped and be able to do nothing about it. The struggle moved across about thirty feet of the trail, with Mr. Scott being able to do nothing but grab the back of Apollo Bob's neck and push his head toward the ground so he couldn't proceed. About then, Mrs. Anne (with an e at the end of her name) heard the ruckus from camp and came running, and, knowledgeable primatologist that she is, exploited the fact that humans are tool-using animals and orangutans for the most part are not, and grabbed a stick and chased Apollo Bob away.At least I wasn't a rabbit, I guess.
I am in a pretty good mood today. You probably would be too, if your day consisted almost entirely of slack, as my Thursdays usually are. That said, I can't help but feel a little rebuffed by something which recently came to my attention. It is, of course, nothing of great importance, but when your days consist of thinking about video games, Arrested Development, and volcanoes (usually in that order) small things seem more significant.
Given my good mood, I ventured to open an email that I would usually classify as spam, since it is generated by a facebook application. It was one of those "compare people" applications. I rarely use it. I rarely use any of the applications actually. And I really should get rid of one of wall functions I have on there that don't really do anything. Most of them exist as some sort of virulent personality test that I have no interest in. Ideally, we'd know the people we are friends with intimately enough to know their basic ideologies and favorite movies, books, television series, politicians, quotes, deities, and historical figures (Meriwether Lewis for the win!). I also like to consider myself a humorous person. Whether I succeed at this, I don't feel fair to judge. But I try and like to think people know that I make an effort to make them laugh and whatnot. Perhaps this has some part in why I was so taken back to learn:
WHAT THE HELL PEOPLE?? I AM ZERO PERCENT FUNNY?! ZERO MOTHERFUCKING PERCENT?? I HATE YOU ALL!!!
There.
Now supposing anyone reads this, that should boost my score for "crazier". Which is already at 100%, but with only 1 vote. THE SAME 1 VOTE THAT SAYS I AM ZERO PERCENT FUNNY!!!
I'll now spend the next 6 posts denying that I really care that much about this. But seriously, I want to know who I was up against that caused me to lose, twice. I'm dwelling on this too much. I'll just rationalize it by saying that everyone just votes for the person they like more anyways.
Anyways, following this discovery, I went on a tirade to all 2 of the people I bother to talk to on aim, venting and the whatnot. I decided to go through and have what I thought in the moment to be a subtle sort of revenge: catharsis through that same compare friends application. It was going well until I hit this question:
This struck me as humorous in a plethora of ways. Some background information will be required. I will say that the girl on the left embodies many of the qualities I consider ideal in a mate (one of which is laughing at my jokes). The one on the right was a freshman when I was a senior in high school and appears to have filled out rather nicely, as I was telling Steve. I'm trying to find a way to describe this without making me sound like a complete bastard. That is probably not going to happen. Rather than an exhausting summation that will fail to redeem my image, I will present this article of conversation with my pal Steeeve with whom I first shared the capture and my juvenile quips.
In an act of unadulterated fail, I bought myself a copy of The Orange Box using the tainted logic that it was (approximately) the amount of money I would have spent on a special someone for Thursday. Instead I spent it on my most special someone: myself. It has been a rewarding decision so far. And I haven't even ventured into the Half-Life series yet!
I was going to write something snarky here about how no one reads this and then does it really matter if posting rate declines because I'm too busy playing games, but I haven't the heart for it right now. I know I'd certainly be more inclined to post more often if I recieved feedback. Tell your friends!
I was referred to this related video and I enjoyed it. Maybe you will to. If not, I highly recommend checking out Portal anyways.
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Now playing: GLaDOS - Still Alive
via FoxyTunes
If I wasn't so alone, I would totally get these. Hell, I'm tempted even with no one to give them too.
It's called as Spiderman Mold Candle. I don't know what that is, well, that apparently. It is a molded candle or a mold for a candle? I am intrigued because I love to play with candles. I wonder if it has spider scents...Powered by ScribeFire.
Hough was engaged to Zach Wilson and originally planned to marry on August 8, 2007 in an LDS (Mormon) temple, but has postponed her marriage. Zach Wilson since has listed his profile as single on his MySpace site. She has also been romantically linked with Kevin Connolly of Entourage fame, who recently gave her a diamond ring and admitted that he is "actively pursuing" Julianne, although Julianne denies a romantic relationship.
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I've been feeling pretty lousy for a while now, but things have lately become substantially worse. Sometimes writing helps; I appeal to the great group therapy now: Internet, heal my wounds!
I didn't sleep well last night, violating the current pattern of fall into bed and hope Morpheus catches you before you stumble into Erebus. I've been oscillating through apathy and agony since about 7pm Friday, when my girlfriend decided it was over.
We've..We'd been together somewhere between four and five years depending on how you count. I never cared too, if she did, she never said anything. Thankfully, I suppose. Seems like a long time, perhaps too long, seems strange. Bothersome? I lack the eloquence to describe the tinge of malaise the timetable gives me, but if you were here I would wiggle one hand a little and press the other to my stomach and make a slight groan. I could only hope you might infer the discomfort time gives me and, you see, my stomach hurts and I have no appetite. I've never possessed an accurate mental chronometer, I confess. It seems surreal.
I've never understood timing either. I always felt myself a poor musician for it. I faked my way through it, more than I should admit, but I am hardly of a sober mind as of late. The timing now, I don't really understand. The events pressed on myself, constantly I felt it slipping from me, but I had not expected it so soon. I suppose I should have; I consider myself a fool now for it. Though my bereavement shall wither with time, this evidence shall persist with me. Indeed, I am a fool. I take solace in knowing I shall not be the last fool or even the greatest, I can hope no greater evidence confronts me with this fact. The fool in me, desired to remain in some simpleton's bliss through the summer. 'One last happy season,' it cried. What more can I lose than my beloved? Only my dignity, and I am writing into the 'tubes. Please, pass the eyeliner, I've some tight pants to match!
I grow sickened with myself. I dare not presume isolation in that.
After all, this was a premeditated action. She was the brooding type, a passive bottler, and I, an infant! She would have weighed every option, probably taking her obligations into account: to her family, friends, herself (in that order). Where I fell, I am no longer certain. I imagine as a mercy-killing. Better now than later. Surrender the facade! Unfortunate..
On Monday, in my dejection I asked her, in response to a text message which stated her obligations to "play mom" for her family, when (if) it would be for her to play girlfriend. This was an unacceptable request! She demanded greater leniency or discontinuation. I replied with an ambiguous "ok". I imagine now that was the demon seed that led to my present squalor. In clarification I proposed some sort of "friends with benefits" option, which was my attempt at saying we should let things slide for a bit. Not so much emphasis on getting together as much and whatnot. I just wanted to ease the tension, take some pressure off. Apparently, not enough. The tension extended into the next year, as she perceived it. Let the lesson live: stopgap saves nothing!
We won't be going back to BYU-I. I won't be going back to BYU-I. She will be. I don't remember her being happy there at all, but I had the beer-goggles of dysphoria distorting my perception. Could I have been dragging her down? She's no longer interested in me now, could the principle have been so different then? I don't know. I can easily imagine her settling in there again, content with her favorite roommate. In this twisted specter, I imagine her roommate needing a double-date partner, and recruiting a reluctant Kirsten to accompany her, who then finds her date to be none other than my former roommate. With myself removed as any limitation, they resume their friendly demeanor and become more..The story ends with her feigning faith for a husband but inhibited by crippling allergies to perfume preventing patronage, or perhaps a conversion? Do these strands seem strange, scrambled even? It is not without some sort of silly substance! Though my mind runs rampant, many former friends call her instead of myself. She has a higher retention on my friends than I ever have ever, it sometimes seems, with less strain than it takes myself to obtain them. Do I dare weigh this evidence as authentication of her abusive assertions that I am of a putrid personality? I am no soothsayer, but my parents failed adolescences in similar circumstances do not sit well with me. I suppose there is solace in the thought that separated from her, I am free from the blue-collar entrapment a child could bring, as it befell my father in his second semester at that same college. It makes me shudder at times. I can take relative comfort in the shortage of soldiers may potentially provide some refuge in the future, should times call for it. I do not know...
I couldn't do it. I can't do it. Not again. The cognitive dissonance shreds my soul. I cannot reconcile myself with the religion and attend the school of such. Two years are too much. I need to transfer to another school, but I do not know where I should attend or what I should study and am hesitant with such a pricey investment. So, where do I go from here?
I suppose I first need to find a new person to hang out with...
I just sent these off to the Scroll for their new feature Top Five, like Letterman's but more crappy. I used Jon's email for convenience.
Top Five ways to spend Singles Awareness Day:
1. Flirting with that coy Ticonderoga in the Testing Center.
2. On the phone with Mother.
3. Same way as the last five Friday nights: Godzilla movies.
4. Sharing your emotional inadequacies with 15 close friends on X-Box live.
5. With a tub of ice cream, bath salts, and Hugh Grant's smile.
I worry that she can't escape herself. Everyone should escape themselves: we are all awful people. I receive text messages late at night asking if I ever get tired of everything. Yes, I do. That's when I go to sleep. Get lost in dreams. Happy dreams, sad dreams, scary dreams, sexy dreams, super dreams, confused dreams. I could ramble about the necessity of following dreams, or just remembering them, the reasons we have them, superficial ramblings. They are important, and let's leave it.
I am a strong believer in the importance of deriving happiness from something, happiness wells, or if you will, happy little trees. I left my radio on Saturday, kept telling the alarm clock to keep trying long after I was stirring, to keep my roommate away. Near noon, a man was talking about brainwashing ourselves into positive habits. I heard John Tesh on M2's radio talk about similar things, but he misused the word habit, thinking it was any bad thing that you tend to do rather than a conditioned response. He used the example of misplacing the keys instead of placing the keys, which would be a habit unlike the prior. But I do not mean to talk about Tesh, I will add it to my list of grievances against M2 and continue with my story about the first radio-man. He spoke of the natural tendency to prefer whatever mental mindset is most comfortable, most familiar, even if not the most enjoyable. I see this is in many people, especially M2. I should not share with you the details of his heavy breathing, his hypochondria, and the general aura of discomfort he exudes. But know that I was quite satisfied this morning when he flumbled out of bed to scramble to the phone call telling him he was late for work, just an hour after his snoring had woken me. Which reminds me I need to remember to completely close my eyes when feigning sleep, so I can avoid the cliche comments like "Welcome to the land of the living" which he spouts at every opportunity, no doubt feeling clever for his utterance likely derived from some forgotten entertainments.
I, for one, with no intention of boasting, am doing quite well, in the fuller sense of the words. I have all the appropriate targets of animosity which I desire, which provide abundant malice for me to malign. A hatred set to simmer is my most comfortable mindset.I feel I am slightly behind in some of my schoolwork and have developed awful fall backs of morning math homework, but have resolved not to let this affect me negatively, although that is dependent of perspective and probably not the wisest decision, it is still mine to make. And in comparing myself to others (and do not pretend that you do not do the same) my luck is quite sufficient for my needs, and my ability to fling the most negative of truths, those that people don't wish to have noticed but are readily observed, have been of great use recently. I gave an impromptu lecture to some of my friends, which led to me being hailed a genius, on their failures with women. It did not matter that I could not recite their histories, I knew their patterns, their follies are intertwined with their beings, thus their histories were revealed. It is unfortunate that they did not believe themselves to be attractive men, because it is so easy to be attractive here. I maintain that the interbreeding has led to a net decrease in attractive individuals, and by no means am I asserting that I am a specimen of grand physical beauty, rather I perhaps feel that I am more true in myself that perhaps confidence in that revelation may lead to an aura of attraction. I will freely admit that it is entirely possible that the aura I just mentioned is a manifestation of some latent complex, but I will not apologize for it. The number of beautiful Mormons will decrease through the generations, and I foresee no decline in the trend. Of course, I am primarily referring to those Mormons of many generations, native to "Desseret". Missionary work will continue to bring new faces into the fold, which will be to some benefit, but how much will it affect the cacausian, and i suspect adamantly latent racist, population of the Jelly Belt? I theorize, and I am no theorist, that this trend, of which I seem more aware (or more diluted) than peers with which I have discussed, is because of the emphasis on spirituality in the culture when choosing a mate. I can draw no correlation between attractive people and spirituality, as I am not one of those involved, and whether it is inheritable or taught in the home, or some combination thereof. I am reminded of studies (whose credibility I can not verify in that they were on blog posts) that inferred that natural fearfulness was an inheritable genetic trait in mice, and a book I saw posted on boingboing.net that suggested that denial of reality was too. Could faithfulness follow such a trend as this?
A girl asked in biology class, where we are studying evolution currently, to confirm that evolution is just a "theory" and that there wasn't really any "proof". The professor, who I admire all the more for how he can walk on these eggshells, that he was showing us the, and forgive me for not having the accurate phrasing, "things they use as proof" and then launched into a subsequent discourse on how we could rationalize these things from a Creationist's point of view. I think all the overwhelming observable evidence may have been starting to get to her.
I must apologize for my writing style, I have been reading Walden, and I grow to hate Thoreau a little more each day. I struggle to decide just in what ways I hate him and what the most accurate and complete description this person would be, though I must admit, he can craft an elegant sentence. Perhaps it is that at times, the essays seem to be little more than his intellectual masturbation, but it was the most thrifty choice for a report. I regret that this reading may have influenced the above style. I must go prepare myself for the day now.
The Last D is for Disorder
Derek Allen
It’s not something I tell people about. Maybe I should disclose that information to my professors within the first week of semesters, but I don’t. They’d treat me different. I don’t want to be different with their special accommodations. I can’t help it. It is incurable.
I think sometimes people notice. The most obvious sign is probably the tics I experience ever so often. They might notice that I stare off a lot, or that I break the stride of conversation with a “random” thought. I don’t have the best memory. There’s only so much it can do. There’s only so much I want it to do.
The side effects hardly even bother me anymore. Well, they do, but they don’t seem like side effects anymore. The vertigo, sweating, upset stomach, occasional insomnia, decreased appetite, however I do worry about my heart sometimes (it’s always racing!). Luckily I’ve only experienced hallucinations once and that was a special occasion. I’m so used to the dry mouth now that I actually drool a bit on liber days if I’m not careful.
Liber is the word I’ve chosen to denote the days where I’m drug-free. It used to be every weekend, but I think that unbalances my body a bit. It’s Latin for freedom, and it’s a bit like that, but more intense. I only do it when I know nothing will be expected of me. My days off are a lot more boring than Beuller’s with the majority of the time probably spent looking around and scratching myself. But there’s a feeling of liberation there, a short-lived one. I’ll sleep an unhealthy portion of the day away and spend a lot of time doing nothing in particular. What time I do end up engaged in something never feels satisfactory, since my sense of time is reduced in my liber state. It is living in the present to the fullest extent imaginable. It’s like becoming a child again. So many things are fascinating again; the details leap out and consume you. I really enjoy the respite from the constant inching. Formication is the most unpleasant sensation short of physical pain.
I first recognized that feeling, that sensation, junior year of high school. The health teacher was talking about cocaine addicts, the side effects mostly. She said they often described feeling like there were countless beetles under their skin, impossible to remove. Sometimes I worry that people will think I have head lice they way I scratch my head. I can’t help that it itches and the itching won’t stop. Physical activity that makes me sweat makes me itch more. Luckily, I can maintain my slender figure without such exertion.
I will never be fat, not necessarily exempt from cardiovascular problems, but never overweight. It’s a stimulant, you see. It lasts up to 13 hours, and from there I’ll drink Mountain Dew (“Satan’s Nectar” if you ask my sisters) until a few hours before bedtime. The caffeine is pretty weak comparatively, but it tastes good, and it’s rebellious. It’s always struck me as ironic that they give the hyperactive kids stimulants to calm them down.
“It’s 6:30; I got off early. They’re waxing the stairs.” I was surprised to see him there, clipping his toenails. I prefer to wake up slowly, over the course of several hours, starting with a soft blend of NPR that diffuses into my dreams. It makes me feel informed.
I could only grunt at him, it is the fullest extend of my still sleeping facilities. I take my medication in this groggy state each morning, as it takes a bit more than an hour for it to take affect and taking it later can cause insomnia. I thought, “Which ones? I’ll be sure to avoid them,” with the intent to ask, but it never reached my lips.
“I’ve been meaning to ask, what’s the medication for?”
“Adult Attention deficit disorder.” I’ve seen a few of the infomercials that try to raise awareness for the condition in adulthood, because it is so often associated with rambunctious kids in elementary schools. The adult made it sound more grown up, and I am an adult now. I always neglect to mention the hyperactivity aspect. I think it has the strongest connotation. A kid that does poorly in school is just dumb, not inattentive, but a kid that is sassy to a teacher, medicate him. People don’t think of me as dumb, I guess that’s why they often are surprised if I tell them I have been medicated since age 8.
“What?”
“ADD”
“Oh, I’d never heard it’s full name before.”
“Yeah…” Most people haven’t, I wanted to say, but I just fell back into bed. If he ever asks again, I’ll assert that the Mountain Dew I take it with is beneficial. I drink a lot of Mountain Dew when I’m working on projects. It helps me concentrate. I don’t think I would have made it into Oregon’s All-State Jazz Band without having its extra stimulant boost at the end of a very long day waiting to record. It’s my spinach really.
People blame sugar, video games, television, severe head trauma, parenting failures and inadequate teachers, genetics. Some probably just blame themselves. I try not to be one of those people. Blame doesn’t help anything. I like to imagine it as being sort of like a race, or secret society, or something. Not an incurable disease, it’s part of who I am. I’ve read some writings that prefer to think of it as a personality type. I like that.
A lot of people think they have it, but haven’t had it diagnosed. Some claim they have it, as if it were an excuse in public domain. I know the symptoms well enough; I can pick out the traits in classmates in high school. There’s debate over how severe it needs to be to count. There’s a lot of debate on everything. People think you need to act a certain way to have it, or that you aren’t smart if you have it, or…I hate those people. I don’t tell people about myself because of those people. I worry about those that ruin it for the rest of us: The parents that doctor shop to dope their kids into better grades, the teenagers who abuse it (is it apathy, disbelief or rebellion?). Grades have never been an issue for me like they were for my sisters, not that grades meant anything in elementary school, when I was diagnosed and medicated. I was disruptive. I was unruly.
I don’t like to read about it. I find it depressing, accurate, and simultaneously comforting and unsettling at times. I don’t like the word “disorder”. I don’t want to be broken. I’ve been struggling to come to terms with myselves, some sort of inner balance.
I like to think of myself as a relic; we’re too common to be a throwback. The numbers float somewhere around 4% of the total population, there’s no way to do a census of us. A race society forgot, never knew in its race for efficiency. I like to think I have adaptations to an archaic way of life. I could, I think, be a good hunter, or soldier, if I had to. That’s what I’m adapted for, I think/hope, at least according to the Hunter vs. Farmer theory. We’ve forgotten Nature, that’s why I struggle. Other reasons are insufferable.
It makes sense to me: A downsized genetic niche, phased out by the more successful farming mind that has shaped our society. Saying I was developed to hunt is so much more glamorous than having a simple learning disorder caused by the random chance of choice alleles. I tried taking Calcium supplements for a few weeks after I read that a calcium deficiency has similar symptoms. I wanted to be sure.
I’m primarily inattentive. My sister Amanda is primarily hyperactive. I don’t suppose it really matters since the treatment is the same for all three versions (the last being some combination of the two), but I resent the hyperactive part of the name; I never use it when I describe myself. I like to think of myself as a calm and rational individual. But I am not non-hyperactive. I don’t like to think about that. I don’t like to think about how I can easily be worked into a frenzy, by excitement or frustration. It took years to cage hyperactivity. Somewhere there exists a video of me running through the kitchen in tighty-whities with passion and friends can recall instances of my logomania. My favorite things let him free. I try to designate time for my favorite things.
I’m sitting in a car, driving from Boise International with my mother. She doesn’t feel she gave me a proper send off before. Her guilt has compelled her to help me move in. It’s a long drive; we talk about a lot of things. My favorite topic is politics, but she likes to avoid it. I think she’s ashamed that I became a democrat. We talk about our family’s greatest struggle: ADHD.
You can read all about the controversy (where it comes from, what it is, if it is), but I will tell you that I think it’s at least partially influenced by heredity. My entire immediate family is ADHD or ADD, and a few uncles on each side display symptoms. My father and youngest brother it has not been enough of an issue to warrant diagnosis or treatment. They only diagnose it if it’s an interference with daily life; the way fears only become phobias if they are beyond control. It’s a good thing my dad is his Union’s shop steward or he would doubtlessly been fired for his hot headedness. We once discussed the insults he would throw at his boss the next time he would get into a fight with him… we discussed this over dinner.
Chelsey’s grades tank whenever she doesn’t take her pill. Amanda just doesn’t care about her grades. Mom’s had the same fight with all of us. I maintain that I am the better child for minimizing the conflict, but really the baby born during my adolescence was what really stole the thunder that was meant for my coming of age.
I tell my mother that I really wish that Dad would seek help for it, just because it would make him a better father. Maybe he would spend less time playing video games, that is what we have most in common, and I am ashamed to admit he can beat me at Halo (but only on the PC). Maybe he would be more patient; things wouldn’t have to always be on his schedule just because. He won’t have any of it; he’s used the term ADHD as a put-down. I’ve never been that close with Chelsey, but we all can see the difference in her from it. I don’t know if she can. I think Amanda knows its importance, but I am unsure. I think our family would be better if we all realized the importance of treatments.
Certainly others would disagree when I say importance. Perhaps it was because I was inoculated at such a young age, I’ve grown dependent upon it. I can feel it take affect, and when it dissipates. Seventy minutes after I take it, my stomach will begin to hurt if I haven’t eaten. With my variable awakening each morning, I’ve forgotten when it wears off, but it’s about 10 hours later. My hunger is more intense and I can sleep hours longer without it. I am groggy throughout any period without. Afternoon church can easily be slept through. I told a bishop that I would try to cull my dependence upon it so I wouldn’t sleep through meetings if I lapsed over weekends. I never did.
I’ve ended the cycle of physical dependence several times over my life, but the psychological dependence and my self-confidence is tied to it unfortunately. I was liber for some time after that semester ended, but it was not a beneficial situation for anyone.
I read Girl, Interrupted on a train in Germany. It was a great book, creative nonfiction, really. The way the nurses in the mental hospital treated the patients, I really empathized with that. Tonguing the medication you really don’t want to take, clinical drugs as a threatened sedative. My parents still use it as a threat against my sisters when they don’t do their chores. No wonder Chelsey hates taking it. It’s a punishment, a declaration that she can’t perform without it. Her natural self is not good enough for them. Isn’t that always the way with parents?
My third grade teacher told my mother of how astonished he was that day I lapsed on my treatment and ate perhaps thrice my usual portion for lunch. I’ve always been underweight, probably always will be. People always tell me to eat more, that I’m too thin. I know that, my biology textbook tells me this. But I don’t get that hungry--it suppresses my appetite. And I only eat until I’m not hungry; I don’t like being “full.” It’s really not that pleasant. I often get stomachaches, which makes me want to eat less. In seventh grade I overheard my father describe me as a “ninety-pound weakling,” I cried.
It’s a hard thing to describe, what it’s like to experience, and I can only imagine what it’s like on the other side as well. Edward M. Hallowell has describes the condition quite insightfully with the passage:
“...It's like being super-charged all the time. You get one idea and you have to act on it, and then, what do you know, but you've got another idea before you've finished up with the first one, and so you go for that one, but of course a third idea intercepts the second, and you just have to follow that one, and pretty soon people are calling you disorganized and impulsive and all sorts of impolite words that miss the point completely. Because you're trying really hard. It's just that you have all these invisible vectors pulling you this way and that, which makes it really hard to stay on task.”
But is only part of the experience, an experience that for me often changes through the day and is primarily an issue of expectations and social constraints; finding the balance between.
I don’t watch movies or listen to music much. Music distracts me entirely. If I try writing with a song in the background, I end up transcribing lyrics. I can go to the movies with someone, as an event. There’s no problem there, but when the movie comes to me, I put it off or start it and leave. I require a firm narrative hook. I feel like a loser going to the movies by myself or watching them alone.
I don’t think I hear the same hymn in church as everyone else. Every consonant clashes, S’s are the most fun and F’s don’t carry well at all. It’s too quiet to study in the library; I need some ambient noise to lift the crushing hush. I’ll often get caught up listening how people are saying, instead of what they are saying. Certain people, like Bob Ross, have a way of talking that lull me to sleep. I think it’s the happy little trees.
Conversations can be awkward for me. I’ll speak without thinking and change topics without warning, talk to myself without excuse…it’s quite embarrassing! My sister breathes through her skin, like a frog, as she doesn’t find time to inhale between words. I didn’t know I could also do this until a father-son camping trip where I talked the duration of the commute, most likely about warplanes or something else my father had minimal interest in. My brother does that very thing now and is much less shy than I ever was. But they named him after a furniture store, so there you go.
I always need more input, my eyes are always darting. Floor tiles, carpet, the grooves in brick, all are elegant in their asymmetry; such harmony is their cacophony, fractals beautiful in their incongruence. I fall into them, sometimes into my own reflection. Sometimes I stare quite a bit and for long periods, sometimes at nothing in particular. My eyes are always darting. The World Wide Web traps me. I chase hyperlinks through Wikipedia, seeing how everything is connected. It is dangerous to me, to learn in this fashion, I don’t want to stop, but it’s not what I should be learning about… Not very productive. Most people will procrastinate to some extent. I procrastinate things out of existence. I’ll spend hours reading on Wikipedia, and then try to justify it as being educational. Those hyperlinks, those portals to knowledge, I love how they connect ideas, theories, fantasies. I get lost in those. I often read the articles on television shows so I can stay current with a show that I don’t like so I’ll be able to talk to people about it. I spark-noted Harry Potter, my family loves the series but it looks like too much of a commitment to me. There’s a theory that every article in Wikipedia can be connected to another through a chain of 6 other articles. I think most of those connections are through The Simpsons. When I start talking about something I learned on Wikipedia, my girlfriend just smiles and nods. It’s not boring to me.
I used to take Ritalin, now my mom takes it. It’s become such a prevalent drug, that Microsoft Word even knows to capitalize it. I take Adderall now; I guess it’s pretty popular among tweakers. People only really know about Ritalin, it became the catchall for the drugs, the way Kleenex is for tissues. I hated Ritalin. It tasted awful. I had to take it with juice really fast so you didn’t get the bitter taste from it. I once bit one of the pills in defiance, one of the most awful experiences of my life. But the worst part was that the dosage was such that I had to go to the nurse’s office every day after lunch, before I could go to recess. It was like that even through junior high. If you forget to go, they send you a note. The teacher gives it to you in front of everyone. Everyone whispers about the note as you take it. You have to walk to the office like you’re in trouble, just because you forgot, the hallmark of the disorder. They made it out like you were going to die if you forgot. Maybe they found some comfort in being certain that the wild and crazy kids were drugged out, like a mental hospital. ADHD doesn’t kill people. I just forgot.
Sometimes I wouldn’t realize what the note was for. I’d be puzzled when I heard my name called. They keep the drugs locked away. I never was sure why. Often I had to wait for the nurse to show up or stop attending to the kid that feels sick or the bleeding knee. I always worried about catching whatever the sicko’s there were coming down with. I knew I was perfectly capable of finding and taking the pills by myself, I think the nurses knew it too, but it was protocol. I’ve never liked protocol.
On field trips, I’d smuggle the drugs myself. The stigma of walking to the office was inferior to that of the teacher tracking you down to administer the globule. They put the troubled kids together with a teacher or chaperone, and never one of the cool ones. I’ve been in that group, to make it easier for the teacher to find me and administer the globule. Eventually I removed myself from the system. Honestly, I think the two smaller doses are more effective than the one longer lasting pill, but it’s not worth feeling like an ass when that note comes, and it’s oh so easy to forget the changing of the guards.
Auburn hair. I’ve never been great with colors. I only wear about 6 colors, it’s simply easier to match. I don’t know what color auburn is (a type of reddish-brown-orange?). I had to pull out a Crayola, the answer didn’t satisfy me, and none probably ever will. I can’t remember a lot of that psychology paper, the one my mother wrote while she was finishing her associates’ degree at a community college. I was in first grade when it was written, probably second, but I only remember a babysitter in the first two grades. The topic of the paper was Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. She must have written it after I was diagnosed, to better understand me…or whatever… I found it when I was in high school, freshman year: the most volatile of the four. She wrote that children with ADHD often have auburn colored hair. I cried a lot that night. I don’t think I was ever supposed to find it, tucked away in an unmarked white binder, full of notes and catalogues on the condition, deep in the bottom shelf of our library--the bottom shelf, right next to the photo albums. She got an A on the paper.
I didn’t start acting out until second grade. Being disruptive in class, that’s usually when they start medicating, before that it’s not necessary and it should usually be considered a last resort. My sister Amanda and I had the same teacher for that grade, a teacher who was amazed when she first saw Amanda raise her hand and wait to be called on to give the answer. There must have been a change in me too. I once sat at the girls’ lunch table, waiting the entire half-hour just to tell her that the world spins at a thousand miles an hour. That doesn’t even make sense; it’s too perfect of a number. That couldn’t have been that same kid who let everyone know if he didn’t want to be in school. That one that banged his head against the divider between the classrooms when finally forced into the classroom he hated. I recall these events particularly; they had to call my parents to escort me. I don’t like to think about it. I had a temper. The pains of puberty taught me pretty well how suppress that demon.
I hated school. At some point that feeling stopped. It must have been in second grade. How dare Ritalin rob me of my hate! I feel cheated by it. I told my mother once that I didn’t like taking it, it made me “be good” and it wasn’t a choice. This was before Cub Scout camp. The other boys didn’t have to take drugs, they got to run and be free. But my mother was also the Den Mother; I had to behave. After working at that same camp years later, I saw both of my two selves. I think I could deal with those kids a lot better for it. After all, we have the same attention span.
She asked me once, she was sitting on the porch, when I stopped being a good boy, I used to be so good, she said. I didn’t have an answer. I just stuck my hands in my pockets and did the little dance that children do when they feel uncomfortable, pretending their jacket is a pair of wings.
I like those chairs that spin. I can’t remember having a doctor without a spinning stool. It made it all very informal with him on his stool, and much more enjoyable up until he arrived (which always took so very, very long). My mother has always remarked that Dr. Meyers seems so knowledgeable in the areas of ADD and ADHD, like he had personal experience with it. She thinks his son has it. He has always referred to them as separate entities, though the distinction is not as official in the DSM-IV. But hyperfocus isn’t included in the DSM-IV and I have experienced that.
Hyperfocus is an amazing ability. I don’t quite understand it, and the Wikipedia article doesn’t cite its sources. It is awesome; I wish I knew how to trigger it. Time ceases to exist; nothing exists except the task at hand. I have spent hours engineering robots from the Lego robotics sets. I built a crude walking one once; it was really more of an ambling shuffle, but still an achievement in my mind. My sister does it a lot; she draws for hours. The ability to act so single-mindedly on a task for hours without break can be a great benefit, but it can just as easily be used for video games as homework, perhaps more so. And it is very, very difficult to change heading. The gearbox for ADHD doesn’t have a clutch; it’s an on-off switch. Driving stick took me a couple years to master.
When I was little, my mother tried to give me heroes who had ADHD to look up to. The ability to hyperfocus has usually been their most redeeming qualities and since ADHD is a new condition, its diagnosis is purely speculative in the retrospect. I think she said that Franklin had it, which I question; the man was very well organized, but was it an adaptive behavior? I can’t be certain. President Jefferson was. He meets all the criteria: strokes of brilliance, problems structuring his personal affairs, extremely passionate and stubborn. Other lists I’ve seen include Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison, which makes sense from what I know of him. But there’s no way of knowing. And it’s not like making decisions quickly is a bad thing or being stubborn and whatnot. It’s just different.
I’ve adapted my lifestyle to better suite a college lifestyle. To-do lists were very important last year. I updated one daily on my computer, but now I keep it more on my cell phone. I use the countdown and alarm features constantly. I also rely more on other people for reminders. If I feed everyone the same information, times and dates, one of them is bound to regurgitate it at some point to me. It’s a constant struggle to not get distracted; procrastination is so very easy. Breaks are important, if I can tell I’m about to lose my concentration, I’ll take a break to refocus, have another glass of Mountain Dew. It’s easy to offend when you’ll blurt things, so I try to keep quiet when meeting new people the first few times until I know what topics I should avoid. I’ve stopped carrying cash to avoid impulse buying.
I don’t like to think of it as a disorder. The name, Attention-Deficit Hyper-activity Disorder, is very focused, very concise, the opposite of what it describes in a way. It seems so negative. There is a word, “neurodiversity.” The basic premise is that just because a brain is wired differently, it doesn’t make it broken or diseased. Opponents of “curing” autism coined the term, as it would be equivalent to supplanting people’s personalities. The more I think about it now, the last D represents just another characteristic of the condition: a deficit of attention, hyperactivity, disorder. I’m all right with being disorderly. As I try to find myself between myselves, the Dr. Jekyll and the Mr. Hyde, my girlfriend reminds me, “don’t get me wrong. I like both you’s.” I think I’m O.K. with that.
I dislike Prom. It is an antiquated puzzle of awkward teenagers pretending to be sophisticated adults in their last steps of childhood. I'm somewhat proud of that sentence. The flowers: What in the Hell? Wear them on your wrist? Why not! It is gaudy and an eyesore. Would you like your penis tacked onto a jacket with an enormous needle? If teens were more coordinated they wouldn't need a letteropener to skewer it, coupled with their embaressment at being unable to wield a sword, despite their aptitude at WoW, someone will be stabbed. My mother said that "a little courtship isn't a bad thing" or something similar. However, I maintain that Prom is not courtship! Sadie Hawkins, Winter Formal, and Homecoming could all be called courtship, but by the time Prom rolls around all capable students have well established a date for the event, well in advance, so far back as freshmen year for fear of rejection last minute. They know these people they are going with, the relationship, the expectations, the menu have all be prepared far in advance. By Prom night, Prom has already been worked through each mind several times, each scenario impossibly planned, prefected, and packaged in their minds with the only remaining execution is the enjoyment of the event. Prom is not courtship, it is the final steps of the mating dance, with its culmination in the hotel room that night. Those that will have already decided and those that won't. All relations involved adjusted beforehand. The ritual requires the fancy hair, the fancy clothes, the fancy dinner, and the fancy make-up for the finale, and they deliver. For me, this muligan of tonight has all the pricetags of last year, but with less reimbursement from parents, and again without the union. I don't mind that, but only having forty dollars left in my bank account is very worrying. I'll only have enough to fill the cadi once and search 200 miles to find employment before I'm sunk assuming an even three dollars a gallon, an average of 15mpg, and a fuel tank of 15 gallons. I most likely won't be given that car to drive, but I can't remember the stats for the others and the cadillac makes it all look very dismal. And I do love dismal. Plus I'm always nervous about seeing a different barber.
