03.20.06
Posted in politics, introspective, anniversary, bush, house, impeachment, iraq, senate, war at 11:05 pm by admin
Today is the first day of the fourth year of the illegal invasion and occupation of the sovereign nation of Iraq.
I’m not going to belabor the point with a tirade about the missing weapons of mass destruction, the lack of body armor, the skewed intelligence, the unfounded WWII comparisons by Donald Rumsfeld, and the emerging civil war that looms like an elephant in the middle of the room that the current administration is simply choosing to ignore and/or deny publicly.
Instead, I’d like to reflect for a moment on where I was when the bombs first dropped in Iraq.
Back in 2003, I was still working for MetLife, and spending my lunch break as I did every single day — with a trip to the local shopping mall for lunch at Steak Escape. When the “shock and awe” campaign began, I was sitting in my car in the mall parking lot listening to New Jersey 101.5, which was playing a news feed from one of the major news networks.
The funny thing is that, for as vehemently against the war as I am now, I remember wondering what kind of danger the troops would be in and whether these “chemical and biological” weapons would be used against our soldiers. I don’t think I ever believed that war was the “last resort” for our government, but I trusted that they knew something we didn’t about what was going on over there.
Now, three years later, I’m far more politically engaged, and I keep better track of what’s going on in the world on a daily basis. I know that we were either deliberately misled by our leaders, or they acted on shoddy intelligence. At this point I don’t think that really matters. What does matter is that thousands of people are dead or have been maimed mamed because of a stupid decision, whatever the motivation was.
And someone is eventually going to have to pay for it.
Whether the Democrats regain control of the House and Senate and impeach our bastard President, or God forbid, “the smoking gun comes in the form of a mushroom cloud” created by a terrorist who detonates a suitcase nuke in a major city, or social services are completely eliminated from the government of the future due to budgetary constraints, or whether the consequences of our government’s actions take another less predictable form — karma always prevails.
Destruction begets destruction. We need to ask ourselves, what does the world owe us now?
Tags: anniversary, bush, house, impeachment, iraq, politics, senate, war
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02.27.06
Posted in rants, iPod, introspective, earbuds, ears, gym, shure at 8:30 pm by admin
Although I absolutely adore my Shure E3c earbuds, I had a bit of a tragedy with them last Thursday after working out at the company gym. I accidentally closed one of the buds in the locker door when I went to take my shower, and didn’t realize until I returned. I reassembled the earbud, thinking everything was fine, so I placed it back into my ear so that I could finish listening to the Feast of Fools podcast, like I do each and every evening.
When I returned to my desk, a co-worker approached me and started talking to me. Out of politeness, I went to remove the earbud from my ear, and it was stuck deep in my ear canal. Not the foam cover, but the entire plastic tip of the earbud itself. This, in fact, had already happened to me once before when I was working at Tommy Hilfiger in New York City. The rubber tip of these same earbuds had come out in my ear, and I was terrified that I would have to go to the emergency room to have it removed. Thankfully, the first aid kit had a pair of plastic emergency tweezers, which saved the day. Today at Yahoo!, no such luck. Not only do I not know where the first aid kit is, but I really didn’t feel like traipsing around building B to find it.
Seeing that I was struggling, the aforementioned co-worker simply walked away. I proceeded to try to pry them out wiith a pair of scissors, which in retrospect was not the smartest idea. Only later was my mind filled with images of falling on said scissors and having them penetrate my brain. Later I realized that I could have been like Phineas Gage, who had his frontal lobe pierced by a railroad spike in the 1800s, lived to tell about it, and was never quite the same. He went from being a nice, socially capable guy, to being an irritable jerk. I wonder if having scissors going through my head would have improved my personality.
Anyway, I cut the inside of my ear, and after it was clear that the scissors wouldn’t be of much help, I decided that I should try to dislodge the earbud a different way: using the handle of a plastic spoon. After about 10 minutes of fighting it, I finally got the bloody earbud piece out of my ear, letting out a huge sigh of relief.
The next day, I resassembled my earbuds using Krazy Glue, and as far as I can tell, they are as good as new, although my psychological state may be a little damaged from the experience.
Tags: earbuds, ears, gym, iPod, rants, shure
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02.23.06
Posted in life, gay, introspective, friends, castro at 8:11 am by admin
I’ve been spending a lot of time with gay people lately. One on one, in groups — I think I’ve met more gay guys since moving to the Bay Area than I’ve met in my entire life. My new life in California seems to have drawn out my homojo (a word shamelessly taken from the title of a Will & Grace episode), if you will.
When Mark and I were together, we never really had any gay friends. Keeping away from the “scene” was his way of keeping all the drama as far away as possible. Needless to say, since he and I met when I was 19, I couldn’t help but think that I might have been missing out on something during my early twenties — and it turns out that I was — but it wasn’t what I thought. Having seen Queer as Folk, I figured that I had only missed out on drug-enhanced sex orgies in the back rooms of steamy night clubs. While I’m happy to say that I did miss that (assuming that it even exists somewhere), I was also missing an opportunity for comradery.
I’ve been so social over the past few weeks that I’ve surprised myself. I’ve gone to karaoke twice, been bowling, met new people from online, gone to brunch, had a mini-cocktail party, and gone out to dinner numerous times, all in the direct company of gay men. Rather than it being a source of stress and drama, it’s been really nice to be able to relate to male friends on a personal level. All my friends have always been girls. I’ll now pause for a moment for the crowd to smirk at the stereotype I’ve effortlessly perpetuated. Now, the girls’ names that have been so much a part of my daily vocabulary — Ami, Jen, Roopa, Jessica, Kelsie — have been augmented, or almost replaced, with guys — Ernie, Andy, Josh, Dominic.
Now, I finally find myself being able to relate to people who are like me in a lot of ways. I’m thinking that this is a product of life in Northern California. I feel like one of the Sneetches with a star on its belly, happily frolicking with my own kind, and that feeling is very freeing to me. My entire life, I’ve really enjoyed being different, and I usually found myself drawn to the “weird” kids. My mother always used to tell me that I’m a “weirdo magnet” because I managed to befriend the opera-singing vampire wiccan lesbians. Now, rather than being one of a crowd of misfits, I feel right at home with others cut from the same mold as me.
Still, with all this newfound “belonging” comes a bit of apprehension. Because I haven’t had many gay male friends, it’s sometimes hard to know how to fit in just right. I find myself doing absurd things, like buying a new outfit to go out on a totally random Friday night, simply because Andy and I will be bar-hopping in the Castro. I ponder whether or not I own enough different pairs of shoes for different occasions. I’ve never really been “one of the crowd” and I’ve generally had very small groups of friends, so going out with people who recognize (and stop to hug) every third guy we see on the street is a very strange experience for me.
I suppose what I’m learning is that at 24, I don’t really need to know exactly who I am or where I do or don’t fit in. But I’ll be damned sure to keep trying. 
Tags: castro, friends, gay, life
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Posted in life, karaoke, introspective, ADD, cleaning, organization at 7:13 am by admin
I spent most of my three-day weekend cleaning.
After brunch on Saturday, and taking Josh to the airport, I headed home to try to sort through the human disaster area that was my apartment. I continued to clean non-stop until 2am, and the next day, I cleaned from 11am until 7pm, all in preparation for company — Andy and Dominic were coming to my apartment for the first time for some Karaoke Revolution and Hangar One lemon drops.
As I was sorting through the mess, I really started to wonder — does anyone else have to spend so much time preparing to have a few guests over on a casual evening? What if I needed to have unexpected company? Being embarrassed of the way that I’m living is a total drain on my psyche, and I’ve tried to get past this issue countless times, all to no avail.
It’s not just my apartment. My Jetta’s trunk is full of things from July when I moved here that I haven’t bothered to unpack yet. I have a box full of unopened mail. A box. This isn’t just any box — it’s the box that my new 20.4″ Samsung LCD monitor came in — the same monitor I was setting up when I should have been cleaning my filthy apartment. That’s a lot of mail. It has piled up so much that I didn’t realize I had received a new Chase MasterCard until I got an email about it. Then, I had to dig through the mounds of mail looking for the one envelope with the real credit card in it (not the one with John Q. Public’s name on it).
I’m happy to say that my social gathering was a success, and that my apartment was immaculate by the time Andy and Dominic arrived, save a few tiny details that I didn’t have time to get to. They had never seen my apartment before, so they couldn’t possibly know the extent of my madness, and thanks to the lack of photographic evidence, they will never have to.
Staring around me from my desk, there are a few tiny things amiss, but Mom was right — it really does feel so much better to work and live and play in a clean space. So why is it that I have such a hard time? I’m a successful web developer with a good job, a nice car (apart from the trunk), and a nice apartment.
Why the self-sabotage?
I used to think it was a lack of motivation. I simply can’t get motivated, I would tell myself. But believe it or not, it all comes back to those three letters: ADD. It’s not that I don’t feel like doing anything — it’s that I have too much that I want to do. Sitting here, concentrating on writing a blog post after over a week of silence is such a relief. Although there are 1,200 different things that I could be doing right now, such as putting away jeans, or watching Sunday’s episode of Charmed, or starting the dishwasher, or folding laundry … the list goes on … I’m focused on something. That’s the sign of a fantastic night.
Tonight was one of those nights. I came home and ate my steak & chili bowl from Quizno’s, and immediately got to work cleaning up what was left of the mess left from last night’s dinner with Dominic. I did what seemed like hours of work but looked at the clock on the microwave and it was barely 10pm. In hardly a blink, my place went back to being almost acceptable.
It’s so incredibly cliché when I think about the concept of “taking things one day at a time” but it seems to be the only thing working for me at the moment. I’m taking inventory of the successes and failures, and if one more thing is gone from my enormous to-do list of life by the time I collapse into bed at night, it should be a mark of success. It’s just hard to keep that in perspective some days.
When there are so many things that I want to do, how can I ever feel fulfilled without finishing them all? And how can I keep that discouragement from preventing me from finishing anything?
Tags: ADD, cleaning, karaoke, life, organization
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02.15.06
Posted in music, introspective, music tuesday, ben folds, Glen Phillips, hangover, iTunes, love, mp3, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Valentine's Day at 4:45 am by admin
It’s Valentine’s Day. Even when I was in a long-term relationship I didn’t really do much to celebrate this day, because my ex and I always felt like it was an overly commercialized holiday. Besides, to me, the elements that really make up abstract concepts like “love” are far more complex and rooted in the things that happen every single day in my life.
To me, love is…
- Spending the entire day cleaning up the vomit that your partner conveniently left in the bathtub while throwing up drunk the night before, all while nursing his hangover between plunging and Drain-O sessions
- Knowing when something isn’t right before he says it and being a source of comfort even when it’s not requested
- Sitting next to him all day as he is pumped full of electrolytes at the hospital to rehydrate him after a bad bout of food poisoning
- Learning to appreciate even his quirkiest, least desirable features, simply because they make up part of a larger whole that wouldn’t be complete without them
- Considering how every decision you make in your life will affect him
- Staying with him the entire day at the airport when he misses his flight, just so that he won’t have to wait for the next flight alone
Candy hearts and flowers are all fine, I suppose. But love isn’t necessarily as easy to define as a Hallmark card. It isn’t always pretty, it’s rarely shiny, and it certainly doesn’t always taste or smell good.
Love is a measure of what level of discomfort you’re willing to put yourself through for the sake of someone whom you care about so much that it hurts.
As my own little tribute to that intensity, my recurring Music Tuesday series features a track by former Toad the Wet Sprocket frontman Glen Phillips. The track is called Easier (mp3), and I think it really conveys the almost physical pain and desperation that love can cause:
And if you said you were going away
I would run on the tarmac and I would lay down in front of the plane just to get you to stay
The track is from Glen’s amazing 2005 album Winter Pays For Summer, available through iTunes (link: 
). The album has lots of other really thoughtful and well-written songs, and includes guest backing vocals on Courage from my favorite piano-wielding genius, Ben Folds. Do me a favor — if you like the tracks I feature, please consider buying the album on iTunes (or clicking an AdSense link!). The tiny affiliate checks just might pay for the hosting. And that could be one more definition of love — caring about someone enough to finance his web hosting.
Err… maybe not.
Tags: ben folds, Glen Phillips, hangover, iTunes, love, mp3, music, music tuesday, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Valentine’s Day
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02.13.06
Posted in life, introspective, blog, blogging, blogs, censorship, honesty, writing at 9:07 pm by admin
An insightful co-worker of mine left a comment on my post about my personal motivation for blogging, and I really think that he asks the million-dollar question:
“…What the difference is between the diary you keep under lock and key and the diary you put on a weblog, knowing that your family, loved ones, friends, coworkers, once and future employers, etc., will read? Are you as honest? More so? Does it matter? Audience always drives rhetoric, even when we don’t know our audience very well. What is your perception of audience doing to enrich (or otherwise) the human story you are contributing here?”
I smiled when I read this comment because Eric asks the exact question that I’ve been struggling with over the past few weeks, especially after having gone back through my journal archives from 1999 to 2004. How much information is appropriate to post? Should I hide certain pieces of information about my life for the sake of being tactful and politically correct? Should I write anything that I would be afraid to tell my mother, or my co-workers?
The reality is that for me, writing is really an exercise in introspection, as well as a way for me to capture a snapshot of where my thoughts are at any given point in time for later reference. A friend and co-worker of mine gave me a very valuable piece of advice a few weeks ago. She said to me, “You should be comfortable with the decisions you make and the things you do in your life. If you aren’t, you’re not being honest with yourself.”
I’ve really taken this to heart. While there are certain personal things that I may choose to blog about privately, the things that I write here should be crafted with utmost honesty, if for nothing else than the sake of historical accuracy. I have friends with popular blogs that have experienced a certain amount of personal drama from being completely straightforward when they write, but ultimately the value of the output usually justifies it.
To answer Eric’s question, I try to be completely honest when I write. I may rant sometimes in a politically incorrect way. I may criticize the government, express distaste for certain population segments (such as bulk discount store shoppers, or circus folk), and I may be self-deprecating at times. However, I want my blog to be a positive window into my own self-reflection, so I will never write something publicly that personally attacks someone I know. It isn’t my intention to hurt anyone, although I’m sure that I will somewhere along the way.
Looking back, I can’t believe some of the things that I wrote freely on a public website, and I can see some very critical mistakes that I may have made. I think some of my candor came from my unawareness of my audience. Now that I’m older (and hopefully wiser), I realize that I’m not writing into a vacuum and that the things I say can affect others. However, anyone who knows me personally knows that it’s pretty hard (and damned near impossible) to shut me up.
If you keep reading, I’ll keep squeaking. I hope you enjoy it. 
Tags: blog, blogging, blogs, censorship, honesty, introspective, life, writing
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02.10.06
Posted in life, introspective, blogging, blogs, digital life manager, dlm at 1:43 am by admin
This week I had an epiphany. That isn’t something that happens to me all that often, I promise.
For some reason, I decided to go looking for my first online diary, which was hosted on diaryland.com back in the days before anyone had even heard the now over-used buzzword blog. I had started the online diary for the purpose of capturing my thoughts and communicating them to others, which is really not all that different from today’s concept of a blog, I suppose.
Scanning through the eleven entries I wrote in December 1999 while I was still a freshman communications major at the University of Houston, I felt like I was reading something that was written by a completely different person. I read myself recalling dreams and nightmares which I’ve long since forgotten, recounting a series of dates with someone whose last name I no longer can remember, and expressing the things that were important to me.
Later, I decided to import all my old LiveJournal entries into my blog as well, and the memories and feelings came flooding back to me — being unhappy at two jobs, being in the midst of a relationship that ultimately lasted 5 years, and glimpses into obscure moments that I had decided to write about for whatever reason, but never expected to be reading 3, 4, or 5 years later. Each of these moments is like a little diorama to me — frozen snapshots of moments in time that are like photographs, but expressed in words, and the feelings I got from reading them were very similar to the ones I experience when looking through a box of old photos, or watching home movies.
Now, I finally understand what my blog should be.
It’s okay for me to talk about things going on in the world, or to comment on interesting things that I hear or read around the web, but the real value in what I write (and the photos that I capture and archive on flickr) is in keeping a history of my life so that I can keep who I am and where I’ve come from in full perspective. I believe it’s really easy on a daily basis to lose track of how you got to where you are today, because we see ourselves in the mirror every day and become so adjusted to what we see that we don’t notice the gradual evolution that we’re going through.
Ultimately, the lesson I learned from the posts I imported is that I need to always continue updating my blog whenever it’s physically possible, and I need to not be afraid to get personal. I hope people enjoy what I’m writing (on days that I’m actually funny, as opposed to this one) but ultimately, it needs to be for me. A coworker of mine, David Beach, is an enthusiastic advocate of what he calls a Digital Life Manager — a tool that aggregates everything about a person’s life digitally, from journals, to images, to other types of media — and ultimately creates the story of a person’s life.
Welcome to my Digital Life Manager. It’s just a blog today, and it doesn’t track everywhere I go and everything I do (yet), but wherever I am in 2016, I can look back to this day and all the days between, and have a crystal-clear picture of my late twenties and early thirties. I don’t know how long I will live, but even if I never become a published author, I know that when I’m gone people will be able to look back and see what my days were like and what was going on in my head, and in that way I believe that this is not only an exercise in personal nostalgia, but my contribution to the human story.
Tags: blogging, blogs, digital life manager, dlm, introspective, life
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02.08.06
Posted in life, introspective, frustration, jetta, josh, relationships at 10:57 pm by admin
Last night I was on my way home, driving my black diesel Jetta, listening to the previous day’s Randi Rhodes podcast as I often do during my short commute home. As I was laughing at her rants about John Ashcroft, Oprah, and Bush’s lies, something horrible happened.
Flashback to the weekend.
I had noticed on Sunday that my fuel light was on, and I knew that I needed to fill up soon. Generally speaking, however, I’m used to being able to go quite some distance on empty because of my car’s outstanding fuel economy. I telecommuted Monday because I wasn’t feeling well, and didn’t really think twice on Tuesday about driving to work on a low tank because I’d easily be able to make it to work and to the diesel station closest to home without a problem.
Boy, did I miscalculate.
I went to Fry’s Electronics in Sunnyvale last night on my way home so that I could purchase a sound card for the new desktop computer I built on Sunday, but it was only a minor detour from my usual route.
On I-880 I began to realize that I was having difficulty accelerating. I was going 60. Then, 50. Then I began to say, out loud, “Oh crap! Oh crap! Please don’t die! Please don’t die!”
All my pleading was completely useless. I put on my hazard flashers and slowly tried to maneuver the car to the side of the highway. Conveniently, that portion of the interstate had no shoulder. So, I had the pleasure of sitting in the right lane right after an onramp with my flashers on, hoping that my battery wouldn’t die and praying that no one would hit me from behind.
I didn’t know what to do. I have roadside assistance with my warranty, but I knew I was in a tough spot and that it would take anyone a really long time to arrive to help me. It was almost 10pm, and my options were few. So, I called Josh.
As I explained the story to him and begged him to go get some diesel and bring it to me, I couldn’t help but feel like a total f*ck-up. Things have been strained between us since last week, and I had offered to give him some “space”. Saying that you’re giving “space” to someone you’re dating is really a polite way of saying, “I like you, but I think I’m getting on your nerves and I want to get out of your hair for awhile so you don’t stop liking me back.”
Asking Josh to put on clothes over his pajamas, drive to the gas station, purchase a gas can, fill it with diesel, and bring it to me on the busy interstate at 10pm is not exactly my ideal execution of “space”, so I felt insanely pathetic and needy, but he was the only person I knew nearby who could help me.
“Hopefully this little fiasco will teach you a lesson,” he said to me after he agreed to come to my rescue.
While I was waiting for him to arrive, I had my first encounter with the California Highway Patrol. A trooper pulled in front of me, and I approached his squad car to explain that help was on the way. He proceeded to pull back behind my car, and using the front of his car, he pushed me in neutral over to the shoulder about 100 feet past where my car had died.
I was amazed not only by the power of his patrol car’s engine, but also by how clearly I could hear him telling me to put on my seatbelt using his megaphone, even with the windows shut. The officer appeared quite obviously to be checking my plates (to make sure I’m not the stupid car thief who runs out of gas, I suppose) and then, he just left. Poof. No goodbye, nothing.
While I waited for Josh to arrive, I snapped some photos by which to commemorate this irritating occasion. I mused briefly about how absurdly vain I might have looked sitting on the highway in a dark car, photographing myself.
Josh arrived after a few minutes had passed, 1-gallon canister of diesel in hand. At first I was worried he might be annoyed with me because of his comment on the phone, but he seemed reasonably calm, considering the situation and his state of exhaustion. I poured the fuel into the tank, but the car just wouldn’t start. The engine turned and turned, but no matter what I did, it just wouldn’t start. My thoughts immediately turned to the fact that I was wasting battery power and might end up with a dead battery and an engine that wouldn’t start.
I’m generally pretty smart about cars, but I had no idea what could be wrong. Maybe the fuel needs more time to drip down into the tank? I thought, although that was a pretty stupid theory, considering that diesel doesn’t have the consistency of molasses.
As I’m pacing nervously around the car trying to figure out what to do next, patrol car #2, this time with two officers, arrives behind us. I explain the situation, and one of the officers says to me in a concerned tone, “Oh, it’s a diesel. You may have air in the tank. You may have to purge the fuel line.” As I’m trying to process this horrible news, he explains that they’re going to push my car to the next exit to a gas station right off the highway, which conveniently doesn’t have diesel.
Josh drives me to a nearby station, where I buy a larger 2-gallon gas can and fill it with diesel. My hope is that refilling the original empty can, along with this new one, will give me enough fuel to coax the stubborn car into starting. When we arrive back at the station where my car is parked, I notice that some fuel has spilled into Josh’s trunk. I have diesel all over my hands from picking up the containers. I try to empty the larger can into the tank, spilling some here and there, and try to start the car once more.
It won’t start. I’m on the verge of panicking. So I attach my portable battery charger to the car battery for some extra juice, and just let the engine keep cranking and cranking, frantically praying for the car to start. About 15 seconds later, the familiar sound of the engine starting nearly makes my heart stop, and I collapse with relief.
I sat in the car with Josh for a few minutes talking about the issues we’ve been dealing with, and explaining to him that the “space” thing was only my way of overreacting about what had happened between us and trying to make things right. I apologized profusely for troubling him, especially when I was supposed to be backing off, but he remained kind and calm, as always, and told me with a smile that I shouldn’t worry so much.
As I drove home, the stink of my diesel-coated hands mixing with the chilly night air, I pondered many things –my stupidity for letting the tank get to empty, my misfortune in not being able to get to a station before running out, the overabundance of friendly state troopers in California — but most importantly how lucky I was to have someone who would come rescue me even when things aren’t perfect between us. I suppose I shouldn’t worry so much.
Overall, it was a great night.
Tags: frustration, jetta, josh, life, relationships
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02.03.06
Posted in music, gay, karaoke, introspective, josh, american idol, drag, drag queens, jenny, karen carpenter, king of clubs, mountain view, simon cowell, the carpenters, wilson phillips at 10:39 pm by admin
Last night I went with Jenny and Josh to King of Clubs in Mountain View for the first time to enjoy a lively night of karaoke. I’ve never actually been able to get anyone to go to a karaoke bar with me, because all of my friends back on the east coast were a little bit too… polished… to be caught dead in one of those places.
Thankfully, out here, it seems that people are a little more shameless. Case in point: a lovely anonymous drag queen that decided to wow us with her rendition of Superstar, by the Carpenters. Can you see her uncanny resemblance to Karen Carpenter?
Of course, it would not be fair for me to embarrass some poor drag queen on my blog if I didn’t take a little bit of time to embarrass myself. Josh sang Maybe This Time, by the lovely Liza Minnelli, but I was warned by Josh that if I were to place the video on my blog, he would never speak to me again. Hardly seems worth the risk.
So now, for your uncomfortable viewing pleasure, here is my karaoke performance of Hold On, by Wilson Phillips. This is a lovely motivational song, but for some reason the karaoke video features Jesus and the crucifix and the Virgin Mary. If there is some sort of religious undercurrent in what I thought to be a secular pop song, I would love to hear more about it. Anyway, feel free to leave your best Simon Cowell American Idol comments on my blog. Here we go!
Tags: american idol, drag, drag queens, gay, jenny, josh, karaoke, karen carpenter, king of clubs, mountain view, simon cowell, the carpenters, wilson phillips
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Posted in introspective, ADD, organization, frustration, apartment, gtd, laziness, psychiatrists, psychiatry, psychology, Ritalin, Strattera at 1:44 am by admin
People who know me know that I’m not exactly the most organized person ever.
People who know me well know that my previous observation is actually a hilarious understatement, worthy of a hearty belly-laugh or a spit-take.
The truth is that for the most part, I’m usually a mess, and I thrive on tiny bursts of productivity, rather than a constant stream of concentrated effort. One area where I could really use a few of those little bursts is my apartment.
I literally have piles of unopened mail from months ago spilling out of a kitchen drawer, a trash bag that’s been waiting to be carried across the hall to the chute for several weeks, laundry that I can no longer classify as clean or dirty (and therefore I must wash it all again), dishes that are ready to be washed, but I can’t be bothered to put soap in the dishwasher - it’s all there.
If someone were to come into my place after I was killed in a tragic forklift accident, they would think that I have the housekeeping skills of a homeless person. All my friends, colleagues and neighbors would wonder if there was something under the surface that they just didn’t see. “He was always such a nice, quiet boy. We had no idea, because he never invited us in,” they would tell the local news reporters.
I’m becoming more and more convinced lately that my extreme disorganization is caused by my severe ADD. I’ve never actually been officially “diagnosed” but I’ve taken enough of those online quizzes to know that I’m pretty much the poster child. I feel like the Strattera pill I pop daily for the purpose of controlling this problem really doesn’t really have much effect, while caffeine seems to drastically increase my productivity.
The conclusion that I’ve come to is that I need some sort of stimulant solution, but I haven’t had the patience yet to find a doctor to prescribe Ritalin or one of its siblings. I attempted to get a prescription from my PCP without any success. I suppose that’s because I ought to be going to a psychiatrist for that sort of thing, but the waiting period to get in to see one is discouraging.
What I find perplexing is that the fog of distraction that I deal with in most areas of my life is not nearly as thick when I’m at work. It’s possible that I’m not as affected by the ADD at work because I’m working on things that I enjoy doing, or because I’m not working in an awful, unappreciative sweat shop (don’t worry, previous employers - I’m sure I’m not referring to you).
Whatever the reason, my productivity will most likely end at six o’clock when I drive home, walk into my apartment, and somehow manage to overlook the empty cardboard box that once was a home to the Hot Pockets I ate on Tuesday, even though it’s only 3 feet from the trash can. I’ll step over the socks (in various indiscernible levels of cleanliness) in the hallway, and stumble groggily into my bedroom, where I will watch an episode of Frasier from 1997, take a nap for an hour, and spend the rest of the evening accomplishing nothing useful, before I fall asleep at midnight or so.
The next morning I’ll wake up refreshed, and ready to do it all over again.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Tags: ADD, apartment, frustration, gtd, laziness, organization, psychiatrists, psychiatry, psychology, Ritalin, Strattera
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