While reading an email, I set a big mug of cocoa on a table that proved not to be located exactly where I set the cup. Cocoa everywhere: in the teeth of the paper shredder. In the blades and cage of a fan. All over one side of a yellow velvet wingback chair. Dousing a Dayplanner. In the folds of junk mail waiting to be shredded.
I am sober, but there's not much difference between me and a bumbling sh!tf@ced drunkard. The drunk probably has a cleaner house.
Monday, September 13, 2010
5:55 p.m....so far, still awake
Have managed to stay awake all afternoon. My diligent day of phonecalls and determined work got waylaid when My Esteemed Life Partner brought it to my attention that an unopened gallon of organic milk expired Aug. 31. @#$%^&
Had meant to make yogurt but then started tearing apart the kitchen to repaint every godforsaken inch of it, and for the last two weeks, the kitchen has been a construction zone.
To my ambiguous delight, I found that the unopened organic milk smelled absolutely fine. Which meant I was obligated to make yogurt. I decided that taking a few minutes out of my day to boil milk would not be a problem.
Three hours later, a broken coffee mug, a quart of scalded milk, a sticky floor, towels everywhere and a shattered Mason jar later, I returned to my writing.
Because I wanted to multi-task, and cook more milk in the Pyrex pitcher while one batch cooled, I made the mistake of pouring hot milk into an apparently cold Mason jar. The bottom shattered right off and milk went EVERYWHERE. I mean, everywhere. On shelves, cabinets, in the lazy Susan thingie, all over boxes of cereal and the baseboards under the bottom cabinets, ON THE DOG, etc. etc. (Dog is fine, by the way; he got splattered by secondary or tertiary spillage from my feeble clean-up attempts.)
Almost instantaneously, the kitchen smelled like the home of an infant. Milk is one of the grosser things to spill, when you think about it and what happens to pools of it that don't get mopped up. Haste definitely made waste in this instance.
So now, in addition to a kitchen that was in a state of upheaval to begin with, with contents piled in other rooms, the place smells like upheave in a daycare center.
Which reminds me. It's past nap time.
Had meant to make yogurt but then started tearing apart the kitchen to repaint every godforsaken inch of it, and for the last two weeks, the kitchen has been a construction zone.
To my ambiguous delight, I found that the unopened organic milk smelled absolutely fine. Which meant I was obligated to make yogurt. I decided that taking a few minutes out of my day to boil milk would not be a problem.
Three hours later, a broken coffee mug, a quart of scalded milk, a sticky floor, towels everywhere and a shattered Mason jar later, I returned to my writing.
Because I wanted to multi-task, and cook more milk in the Pyrex pitcher while one batch cooled, I made the mistake of pouring hot milk into an apparently cold Mason jar. The bottom shattered right off and milk went EVERYWHERE. I mean, everywhere. On shelves, cabinets, in the lazy Susan thingie, all over boxes of cereal and the baseboards under the bottom cabinets, ON THE DOG, etc. etc. (Dog is fine, by the way; he got splattered by secondary or tertiary spillage from my feeble clean-up attempts.)
Almost instantaneously, the kitchen smelled like the home of an infant. Milk is one of the grosser things to spill, when you think about it and what happens to pools of it that don't get mopped up. Haste definitely made waste in this instance.
So now, in addition to a kitchen that was in a state of upheaval to begin with, with contents piled in other rooms, the place smells like upheave in a daycare center.
Which reminds me. It's past nap time.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Fighting the Swirlies
Argh. Have been working on this stupid story all day (as well as all day yesterday, and all of last week) and I keep re-reading it, hating it and starting over. I must be on the 15th revision right now. All my notes are crammed into one file that if printed would probably fill a three-ring binder.
My entire body hurts, every muscle and fiber, and my tongue feels like it's been on fire for the last two weeks. And my toes hurt. WebMD tells me both hurting toes and tongues-on-fire are symptoms of hypocalcemia, which is abnormally low calcium in the blood. As is exhaustion, muddled thinking and weakness, all of which I have.
So now my mind is spinning around like a hamster in a cage, and I've exhausted myself to the point at which I'm ready to fall over. Hypocalcemia can be caused by a bunch of fairly serious-sounding things, and it can lead to a heart attack.
Meanwhile, am attempting to stay focused on this stupid story, which is already a week late. But I can feel the insides of my head start to swirl -- round and round like water spinning around in a toilet -- and that usually leads to my zonking out cold for several hours.
After which I wake up pissed off that I still haven't got this stupid story done. MUST NOT GIVE IN TO THE SWIRLIES. NO SWIRLIES TODAY!
My entire body hurts, every muscle and fiber, and my tongue feels like it's been on fire for the last two weeks. And my toes hurt. WebMD tells me both hurting toes and tongues-on-fire are symptoms of hypocalcemia, which is abnormally low calcium in the blood. As is exhaustion, muddled thinking and weakness, all of which I have.
So now my mind is spinning around like a hamster in a cage, and I've exhausted myself to the point at which I'm ready to fall over. Hypocalcemia can be caused by a bunch of fairly serious-sounding things, and it can lead to a heart attack.
Meanwhile, am attempting to stay focused on this stupid story, which is already a week late. But I can feel the insides of my head start to swirl -- round and round like water spinning around in a toilet -- and that usually leads to my zonking out cold for several hours.
After which I wake up pissed off that I still haven't got this stupid story done. MUST NOT GIVE IN TO THE SWIRLIES. NO SWIRLIES TODAY!
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Post Labor Day lethargy
I made it through the weekend without doing anything overly moronic, blurting out inappropriate thoughts that pop into my head or losing any personal possessions. The key is to simply not go anywhere. It's true, and it works -- the cure for ADHD. Not having to pack up the car with emergency kits and tote bags full of this or that, or the proverbial dish to pass, or remember which bag contains the camera and suntan oil saves a huge amount of time, money, headache and frustration. Not to mention makeup.
My Esteemed Life Partner (MELP)and I went to a nature place we'd always been meaning to visit but never got around to, even though it's free and five minutes away. I got lost there and had no concept of where we'd walked or how to get back, but luckily for me, MELP has a fairly sharp inner compass.
I took a vacation from the computer, e-mail and from my ADHD meds -- felt a lot better, actually. Am still taking a hiatus from the meds today, although obviously I've turned on the computer. I'm embarrassed to admit I dozed off for 2 1/2 hours today, though.
Every muscle in my body hurts, and I'm beginning to think I've got fibromyalgia. Maybe all my ditziness has really been "fibro fog" and not ADHD. What if that turns out to be the case? They say there's no "cure" for fibromyalgia, but from what I've seen, at least in my case, there's not been much of a cure for ADHD, although I do know of one ADDer woman who is functioning very well, at least on the surface.
My Esteemed Life Partner (MELP)and I went to a nature place we'd always been meaning to visit but never got around to, even though it's free and five minutes away. I got lost there and had no concept of where we'd walked or how to get back, but luckily for me, MELP has a fairly sharp inner compass.
I took a vacation from the computer, e-mail and from my ADHD meds -- felt a lot better, actually. Am still taking a hiatus from the meds today, although obviously I've turned on the computer. I'm embarrassed to admit I dozed off for 2 1/2 hours today, though.
Every muscle in my body hurts, and I'm beginning to think I've got fibromyalgia. Maybe all my ditziness has really been "fibro fog" and not ADHD. What if that turns out to be the case? They say there's no "cure" for fibromyalgia, but from what I've seen, at least in my case, there's not been much of a cure for ADHD, although I do know of one ADDer woman who is functioning very well, at least on the surface.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
10.5 hours of sleep and still a zombie
Where is my brain? Why is it always floating away? It's like it has its own out-of-body experiences.
The meeting two nights ago of our little preservation group had my head spinning. I had trouble following the discussion and trying to listen to three conversations at once when people talked amongst themselves. All in all, I felt like I missed something. You know the feeling, like everyone's in on an inside joke you know nothing about. I find that note-taking helps my focus a lot; without it, things are hopeless. I am forever distracted by someone's face or clothes; if I don't look at them and instead look at my pad of paper, I can somewhat keep up. But talking to anyone in person with no notebook can be a waste of time because it goes in one ear and right out the other, like a bee zipping through a small room and exiting through a window.
That same day, the electrician-dude was trying to explain to me my three or four options on setting the motion detector lights. The options were too much for me to keep track of: light goes on half strength dusk till dawn and full power when it senses motion; light is off except for when it senses motion; light can be set to one minute, three minutes or 20 minutes after motion is detected. I think there were a few more choices. I kept asking, "what did you say? repeat that, if you would" to no avail; he'd repeat it and I'd be so distracted by how stupid he must think I was that I couldn't retain anything. I tried looking at the light's instruction booklet, but the blob that was supposed to be a light looked like a navy bean to me. It made no sense. Finally, I just told him, "Set it to whatever you would set it to at your house."
The meeting two nights ago of our little preservation group had my head spinning. I had trouble following the discussion and trying to listen to three conversations at once when people talked amongst themselves. All in all, I felt like I missed something. You know the feeling, like everyone's in on an inside joke you know nothing about. I find that note-taking helps my focus a lot; without it, things are hopeless. I am forever distracted by someone's face or clothes; if I don't look at them and instead look at my pad of paper, I can somewhat keep up. But talking to anyone in person with no notebook can be a waste of time because it goes in one ear and right out the other, like a bee zipping through a small room and exiting through a window.
That same day, the electrician-dude was trying to explain to me my three or four options on setting the motion detector lights. The options were too much for me to keep track of: light goes on half strength dusk till dawn and full power when it senses motion; light is off except for when it senses motion; light can be set to one minute, three minutes or 20 minutes after motion is detected. I think there were a few more choices. I kept asking, "what did you say? repeat that, if you would" to no avail; he'd repeat it and I'd be so distracted by how stupid he must think I was that I couldn't retain anything. I tried looking at the light's instruction booklet, but the blob that was supposed to be a light looked like a navy bean to me. It made no sense. Finally, I just told him, "Set it to whatever you would set it to at your house."
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Rude awakening but not really awake
I did end up konking (conking?) right out, next to my laptop. Who drinks coffee, tea, takes a generic Adderall and falls asleep? This is not funny.
Anyway, woke up to a phone call from a historical society friend saying that the building we were lobbying hard to preserve is being bulldozed right this minute. So much for community activism.
I'm in a stupor now but need to be somewhat sharp, as I must make a phone call for a story I'm working on. My eyes are crossed and I feel like somebody put Valium in my latte.
Anyway, woke up to a phone call from a historical society friend saying that the building we were lobbying hard to preserve is being bulldozed right this minute. So much for community activism.
I'm in a stupor now but need to be somewhat sharp, as I must make a phone call for a story I'm working on. My eyes are crossed and I feel like somebody put Valium in my latte.
Breathing through peanut butter
Right now I'm frantically trying to finish a story and comprehend all the copious notes I took. I took so many notes that now I'm thoroughly confused. I feel like I've walked around the Equator and am at the same point I started out. I'm struggling to stay awake. My eyelids are drooping and I could tip over any minute. It feels like my head is filled with helium, or cement, and I am drowning in a big vat of peanut butter. Just feel veeerrrry slow and lazy.
Yesterday was an all-time low for my ADHD situation; I'm too tired and lazy to write about it right now, but it was a debacle.
Yesterday was an all-time low for my ADHD situation; I'm too tired and lazy to write about it right now, but it was a debacle.
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