The key to living dangerously

So last night, I dropped my keys while walking my dog.

In the dark.

While listening to a podcast about an unsolved murder.

The keychain had my flashlight and pepper spray on it, so I was forced to retrace my route unarmed and in the pitch black.

While listening to a podcast about an unsolved murder. Did I mention that?

My hound insisted on going forward, not backward, so I ended up carrying him. I recalled the spot where I last shined the light while my pup took a cigar break. No keys.

We returned to the house and, since the lost keychain had my house key on it, we couldn't get inside. Fortunately, I keep a spare. But it's hidden in a spot that had just been painted two hours previously. This led me to do the splits, balanced on one toe, to pluck the spare out of its hidey-hole. No problem.

Inside, I fetched another flashlight and headed out again to continue the search.

Voila. The keys appeared within a yard of where I realized they went missing. Yes! Victory.

Since the mishap cheated my furry friend out of his full walk, we went for another.

This time, nothing dropped (except his cigars).

Baby, I was born this way?

A loser. Yes, that's it. I'm a born loser.

The other day, on my birthday, the very last day I could renew my driver's license before it expired, I went to the local DMV. Which was fun, don't get me wrong. I love to people-watch and wonder about their lives.

In order to get the new federal I.D. that goes into effect in 2020, at which time it will cost $14 but is free if you apply for it when you renew your driver's license, you need to bring your birth certificate, social security card, passport, old driver's license, etc. I emptied our lockbox into a fresh, new, padded manila envelope and took it with me to the DMV. (Did you know the D stands for Division?)
Quit getting Distracted, Mea.

They told me the yellowed piece of paper I thought was my birth certificate was not, in fact, my official birth certificate. I needed one with an official seal. They told me to truck downtown to the other side of the river, stand in line, and get the real deal. So obediently I went home across the river and dug through a bunch of old, old, old (like kindergarten old) folders full of report cards. Out popped the official certificate, and off I trundled back across the river to the DMV, grateful at not having to stand in line at another government building.

After that three-hour cruise, I couldn't resist the thrift shop across the street from the DMV and lugged home two garbage bags and a suitcase full of stuff.That night for giggles, my mate and I looked at all the dippy photos in those ancient school files. No birth certificate, but surely it would surface.

Two days later, I went through piles of files and garbage bags, and the manila envelope didn't show up. I uprooted the house much of the day yesterday, then as a desperate measure, called the DMV. Which doesn't have a local number. So you need to call the state DMV.

They called me back a few hours later and said yeah, they had my stuff.

Hurrah! A small victory! But hours (and dignity) lost in the search.

Today I hope to get around to schlepping across the river to pick it up.

Rain of terror

OK, so I'm a little distracted today. It's a new deadline for a new issue of the magazine I edit, and I've got a couple stories to write besides. Things on my mind include:
1. Getting my 2016 year's taxes done by Sept. 10, my acountant's deadline for the fall late filing date;
2. The pain diary I'm supposed to be keeping as an exercise with my therapist to gain control of my osteoarthritis pain (I'm a huge slacker and have only made two entries in three weeks, even though I keep a personal diary daily, religiously);
3. The two prescriptions to pick up today;
4. The sources to contact;
5. Renewing my driver's license before Oct. 23;
6. Trump's horrid DACA ruling this morning;
7. Filling out some papers for Met Life;
8. Guilt for not helping my parents more with the family business;
9. Concern for my mother and her issues ....

So all that's hogging my limited brain space.

Meanwhile ... the vice president of the nonprofit for which I'm (the worst ever) secretary emailed me asking for the results of last year's board-member election in October 2016, as she lost track of the length of term for our new treasurer.

So I'm searching in vain, all the while slowly consumed by the uneasy recollection that, at that Annual Meeting event, I'd gotten so distracted by the speakers and by my own nervousness at having to say a few words to the audience that I forgot to take notes for the first three-quarters of the event.

The last quarter I wrote on a napkin, and it amounted to so little of import that I ended up sneaking by without putting anything on record. By the next meeting, November, everyone had completely forgotten that they'd never received minutes for the previous month, October, and I didn't bother pointing it out.


I popped two Adderall in an effort to gain some focus. While in the kitchen, I ended up rinsing out some recyclables ready to be binned. I'd been set to accompany my fluff-bunny Lhasa out for a walk, but we discovered it was raining. Feeling bad for him, I decided to play chase-the-treat with him around the house -- he needed some activity.

I could hear the rain falling harder and harder, so I hopped on the computer in the kitchen to do some work for a bit till it settled down. My partner came into the room.

"Why is the water running?" he asked.

I followed his glance at the sink and saw the water on full blast.

OMG. I'd left the water on while rinsing empty coffee jars and milk jugs.

The rain had petered out but I'd continued to hear the loud, pounding, soothing shower and assumed it was rain gushing out of the clogged eaves.

Perhaps this calls for a brisk walk to get blood flowing to that empty jar I call my brain ....

Looking for things is a full-time job

OK, I'm really having issues here. 

Ever since I got back from my trip down to Piddleyville, I've been searching for one thing or another. It's really getting ridiculous. My whole life is an Easter egg hunt.

Right now it's a library audio book on CD that's disappeared. Not the whole set of 5 CDs, just one that escaped its case and got separated from the rest of the crew. 

I remember very distinctly that, as I was packing up my stuff down in Piddleyville, I put it inside another audio book case and put THAT in my designated, organized "media bag." This media bag held all the books and audio books I brought down there and all the magazines and newspapers. All together. Like with like. Just like those nitwit organizers preach. I did what I was supposed to, like an organized person. Look where it got me.

So what went wrong? I don't know.

I shook out all of my books upside-down, took every CD out of every case to make sure two weren't hiding in one slot. I looked in my car, my clothing, the lining of my coat. I even searched under those little stiff things on the bottom of every cloth shopping bag I took down there.

See, the audio book, "Rumpole and the Primrose Path," is due Saturday. I've renewed and re-renewed and have maxed-out the number of renewals on it. 

This same thing happened last year: I lost two library audio book CDs and had to replace those, for $10 apiece. 

Two other things that went missing: my umbrella, which I left in a church 70 miles away. At least I know where it is. 

And a new USB cord I bought en route to Piddleyville to assist in downloading my library audio books. (A necessity because THE RADIO STATION DOWN THERE SUCKS and it's impossible to tune in NPR.)

My USB process has been slow, so I figured a deluxe $13 cord would do the trick. 

Now it's nowhere.

But wait, there's more. In between the realization of the missing disc and the last stupid thing I lost last, as documented in the last post (glasses? garage door opener?), I misplaced a rent check for $800 from my tenants. You would think one would have been mindful where one put that. 

Nope. 

This took several  hours out of one day last week before I found it in my pen case. (I knew I put it somewhere "special," I just couldn't remember where "special" was.) My Pilot P700s are definitely special as they can't be bought in actual stores. 

And so today I've spent the entire day searching for that stupid missing disc -- way more time than the $10 replacement fee warrants. The catch is, I TOOK AN ADDERALL TODAY. I'm medicated and SUPPOSED to be functioning like a grownup.

Instead, half my brain feels like it's yawning, and the other feels like a ball of yarn whose loose end is being yanked tight, so that the yarn ball is being squeezed into knots.

Anyway, I should get back to my actual work -- the kind that pays, albeit pretty feebly. Wonder if the IRS would mind if I deducted the $10 replacement disc, the $13 USB cord, and my time searching for them?

Until later ....

Someone asked me, "What do you do in your free time?"

HA HA HA HA.

I'm laughing not because I'm the typical overstressed, overscheduled, over-appointmented, never-say-no-to-any-committee type of Superwoman you hear about. 

I'm not. 

I've learned that I'm not to be trusted to show up to meetings on time or get things accomplished or benefit an organization in any way, so the word no is a key member of my vocabulary.

No, I'm laughing because I spent "spring break" down in my hometown, taking care of my parents' house, business and three dogs while they and my brother and his family spent 18 days in Hollywood, Fla.

Since packing for my "staycation" down in Piddlyville is another story for another blog entry, I'll spare you.

I did think that, since my workload at the family store would be shared by two other employees despite its being open seven days a week, I'd have plenty of time and energy left over to read several back issues of Writers Digest (catching up on a subscription I had in 2005), prepare my tax documents for the accountant, work on my novel and see a friend at least once.

Ha ha ha ha!

Here is an example of four days in the life of Mea Scatternoggen that totally illustrate what I did in my free time:

• Tuesday, I lost my mom's garage door opener -- searched hours, ripping apart my car, the garage, my tote bags and handbag -- and, just before dark fall, found it in the alley behind the store. 
• Wednesday I went to a funeral 25 miles away for my partner's aunt, and while riding with him in the convoy, left my keys to the store and my car in his car. So they ended up at home with him at home 70 miles north. Fortunately there were spares lying around my parents' house.
• Thursday I lost my glasses and spent the next 50 hours searching for them. They later turned up in a laundry basket full of shop towels I was laundering for the business.
• Friday morning, as I drove in to the alley to park my car, I saw my big pink foam lumbar support thingy sitting there in the parking space, where it had evidently rolled out of my car, completely unnoticed by me.

So ... What did I do in my down time while my family went sightseeing and exploring the beaches and shops of Hollywood Beach?

I went on a veritable hunting safari for my brain ... and concluded some lost items are better replaced than found.

Life's a real gas, all right

How to describe this particular ADD feeling?

Dear ADDers, I had to stop in the middle of my retail project to write about this sensation, because it seems like this is distinctly ADD that's rearing its pretty little head.

Speaking of heads, mine feels odd. Emptyish, like it's filled with gas instead of gray matter and other gross stuff. Not liquid like gasoline-gas, but some gaseous element ... is gas an element? I guess an element can be a gas but all gases aren't elements. I spaced out during high school chemistry.

Something like helium. Yes, that's it. Helium. So my head feels like an empty, dried gourd filled with this gas, and my neck is the only thing anchoring this gourd onto my shoulders, otherwise it would fly away. Maybe it has -- my brain is MIA.

Seriously, folks, it feels like nothing's in this cabeza (or shall we say calabaza). Yet at the same time, it feels heavy, like a 20-pound pumpkin.

And my eyes seem to be going in different directions inside of my head. Not literally, but that's the sensation, like balls are shooting out of the back of my eyeballs into my head. One's rolling left, inside my head, and the other's rolling right, like those illustrations of electrons and protons circling a nucleus.
 

... only there's no nucleus in my head, just those little balls flying round in different directions.

Can anyone relate to this, or is this just the freakiest damn thing anyone's ever heard of?

It's like the protons and electrons -- instead of having different charges so they attract each other -- have the same charge so they repel each other and go round and round in circles, orbiting nothing, really, because if the nucleus is there, it's tiny.

So I'm waiting now for an Adderall to kick in and make those electrons and protons gravitate to the nucleus and have a creative powwow together. It seems to be taking forever, though.

In the meanwhile, I'm at work in my family's store, tasked with the project of generally updating merch displays. Which is fun; I love rearranging stuff. But I can't think or focus and instead start one project only to be drawn to another three minutes later. (Like posting this, for example.)

I just want to hide in a corner on the floor with my head between my knees until some sort laboratory explosion of ideas and thoughts blasts me back into the present.

I remembered what got lost...

I didn't lose you! 

OK, so it's been awhile. You probably thought I'd misplaced YOU, my dear blog, along with the crystal doorknob, spare mailbox key, newish Ethiopian-opal earrings, pepper spray, pedometer, common sense, entire mind.

Don't worry, you haven't been festering on some sidewalk somewhere under rotting leaves and piles of snow.

No, dear blog, I've known exactly where you've been this whole time.

(Wellllll, technically that's not true, as I had to Google you to find the address of your special online home.)

But I knew how to find you. (If only I could just Google to find the above items.) HOW DOES ONE LOSE A DOORKNOB, you might ask. Never mind, it's a long story.

So today is the first day of my new medication -- an old one known for its use on antsy little boys. Ritalin. I was apprehensive at first, but so far, I haven't had delusions or the urge to chug a pitcher of purple Kool-Aid while stomping on ants and tipping over chairs. I'm not outside launching bottle rockets or shooting robins with BB guns.

Being highly suggestible, I admit, I am determined to make this one work, as Adderall, Vyvanse and bupropion haven't made a damn dent. 

"This will change your life," I keep telling myself. If I tell myself it will be so, it will be so. For all I know, it could be a sugar pill: I'm exactly the type of person who could heal from a placebo, because the power of my imagination CAN BE fierce. I have just kept it buried, though, for years. Too many years.

You see, my dear blog, the thing I've lost is my self. My creativity. That spark, that sparkle, that light. That urge to go out and do something, go somewhere, start something new. I have had no motivation for months. Years, even. And I'm really, seriously sick of it. It just can't go on. 

I'VE LOST MY MOJO.

Which is why, last fall, I began seeing a therapist that charges (my insurance company) a wee $435 an hour. I'm amazed anybody, insurance company included, thinks I'm worth that amount -- thinks there's something here worth salvaging. Every day I expect them to terminate my policy. BUT THANKS TO THE MUCH-MALIGNED OBAMACARE, I guess they can't.

We'll call her Marlee. 

Marlee has concluded my brain is too cluttered with negative energy and old tapes to function. It's exhausting me, draining me, and maybe that's what's adding to my "inattentive ADD" and contributing to the lack of focus, scatteredness, flightiness I endure each day. Maybe I'll chronicle here what we talk about each week. She's a regular part of my life, and I practically adore her. Yesterday we talked about thoughts being a choice. "You can choose how you feel, you can choose your thoughts," she said.

So today, I choose productivity and positivity.

Until next time,
Mea Scatternoggen