OUT OF FOCUS

The chicken or the egg; the anger or the ADD

ADD Symptom:  Angry.  Very, very angry.

I spend $130.00 a week to talk to my therapist about my €anger issues€.  I go every week not to talk about my problems but to sit on her well-cushioned soft leather sofa, which alone is worth the 130.00.  My doctor, whom we shall call Dr. H., says its my verbal impulsiveness that gets me into trouble. She says that I like to go for the jugular€.  I like that.  It makes me sound very athletic for the girl who used to cry during Dodge Ball.

Anger Incident #1:

It was in the golden days of buying subway tokens.  It was a hot day and that usually never helps when you are in a New York City Subway and I was waiting in line for some tokens.  This large woman, whom we shall call, rotund, cuts in front of me and I spoke my thoughts instead of thinking them. "What a fat f_ _ _ _ _ _ idiot", I said and she turns around, donut eyes beaming, and says, "Excuse me, skinny?".   In situations like that I usually pull out the deaf card and simply "signed" back to her.  I stared in black open air, thinking its best to defend myself when I am in the presence of a New York City police officer.

Anger Incident #2:

The Time Warner/AOL building was under construction when I hurled a glass Snapple bottle at a construction worker's crotch.  Again, a hot day, with a low tolerance for a pickup line.  Bob the Builder salivated as I walked by, "Shake that thaang...can ya can ya can ya....shake that thaang..."  No, but I can throw that thing.  The Snapple bottle didn't break but must have left a memorable bruise.

Anger Incident #3 and #4 combined:

Years ago, I was dating a man whom we shall call "the Bagel Maker". The Bagel Maker was a rich man  who owned many bagel shops throughout the city and one perk of dating the bagel maker was the promise of free coffee and bagels.  Well, one day I went into one of his stores and the manager insisted that I pay for my coffee and bagel for I was "just another paying customer" to him.  I insisted he call the Bagel Maker to confirm over line that I was his girlfriend.  Angry Manager said, "How can you be the Bagel Maker's girlfriend if you're not the Bagel Maker's Wife?".  I was aghast. I launched the hot cup of coffee over the counter and ate the bagel.

That night, the Bagel Maker came to my apartment and he confessed of his marriage and two kids.  And then I thought, perhaps in our most intimate moment, I can pull a Paris Hilton and make a sex tape and then mail the tape to his wife and disguise it as a Barney video for his kids?

It would have been so "movie of the week" of me but I chose to start paying for my coffee and bagels instead.

Bitches Behind Bars

OK, so this is what I call ADD hyper-focus. I was on the stair master at the gym reading somebody else's sweaty newspaper and this article shot me into what felt like a hypoglycemic state.   I titled this post Bitches Behind Bars because thats where I'd like to see all three of them after the first season flops.
I think this is an opportune time to exercise the word "ho" in a sentence because these three ho's are the type of women that marry for money, drive the guy insane, lie, cheat and steal.  And then wrongfully win in court. 

These three loose ladies are starring in a show that actually got picked up by ABC called "The X-Wives Club" where recent divorcees bitch and moan about their X and these bubble heads help them move on with their lives.

I'm sorry, but this show is just an insult to women, making them look, caddy, desperate and stupid.

Lets break it down:

Marla Maples: sounds like something you would spread on a pancake (emphasis on the word spread).  A former cheerleader who should have choked on her pom-pom instead of Donald a looong time ago.

Angie Everheart:  How can you respect a woman who was married to a guy who says, "cup the balls, stroke the shaft"?

Shar Jackson: Impregnated by grease monkey, Kevin Federline.  Can you say, Planned Parenthood?

Need I say more.

Long-Term Goals Do Not Exist

ADD SYMPTOM:  Insufficient follow-through; trouble sticking to a plan.

Last month I set myself a goal:

GOAL: To write blog entry everyday for 365 consecutive  days and self-publish book.

Not that it would necessarily make me the winner of the  2008 LuLu Blooker Prize but it would mean that I have  finally FINISHED something.  For those who don’t have ADD, imagine not ever being able to finish a To Do list because you cannot find your To Do List.

Here is a brief list of things that I have started but have not finished for some time:

1. Cutting my film, Channel Surfing, that I shot in 2001 (ala Amazon Women On the Moon, Groove Tube, Kentucky Friend Movie). Now cut into a TV Pilot due to lack of focus n' funds.

2. Launching Bernie Rockaway’s Rough Copy podcast.  That’s right.  That’s me.

Check out the website if its even still up there: www.roughcopynews.com.

3. Cutting my latest acting reel (not that I am even acting anymore)

4. Balancing a check book

5. Learning HTML and CSS

6.  Pitching my script, Kid Celebrity,to anyone willing to read it.

But as you can see by my sidebar calendar, I am falling short of my goal and days absent of blogging due to my “Napa Valley Binge”. Life seems to be floating just fine until I set myself a goal.  Sweat beads. Hands Freeze. Wine Flows.

This past Saturday, dinner conversation with my sister in Menlo Park consisted of the inflated real estate price in "the peninsula", her teary absence of any Google stock and my failure to stay focused during a conversation.  Its not like talk of interest rates every kept me up before but I knew what she was referring to, my inability to concentrate over dinner conversation.  My friends have accepted my “checking in and out” but it seems like family will always take it personally.  I mean, she has no Google stock (#$!?)

What I want to know is this:  How do people like Darren Rowse do it?  The guy is a Professional and Hobby Blogger.  He writes numerous blogs and then finds the time to start a business called b5media.  I don’t think the guy is human.  I think he is the Bionic man, The Six Million Dollar Man and no one has blown his cover.

I wanna fire my shrink and hire Darren Rowse for a week.  How the hell does this guy keep it all together? I don’t know how he does it.  Maybe he avoids trips to Napa Valley.  Or maybe he just has lots of Google stock.

Blogging; a blind relationship

Now that I have started blogging, something strange is beginning to happen to me.  Every night when 11 pm hits and let’s say I am out having a glass of wine at a lounge with a friend, I suddenly gets these pangs of guilt knowing that I wont be able to make my nightly blog entry.  I feel like I am in a blind relationship to you guys/girls…my reader. I can’t see you but I can definitely feel you.

Am I that narcissistic to think that you are actually thinking about me and wondering, “Kali hasn’t blogged for three nights?  Where the hell is she?”

There’s this really comforting feeling knowing that anonymous folks are “checking in” on you.  I find that I do it to other bloggers.  If I notice they are not posting, like a worried parent, I start to inquire:

“Bob, are you OK?”  You haven’t blogged since last Tuesday?  Do you want to talk about?”

“What’s going on?  Man, if you’re in a downer, I’ve been there…talk to me…”

Sometimes they do.  And sometimes they don’t.  And that’s OK, too.

What’s my excuse for not blogging for three days?  An A.D.D. funk.  A bad funk that is, where every task feels so incredibly daunting that I am debilitated and it’s IMPOSSIBLE to focus. Good thing is, I start to feel the upswing coming knowing that I will be coming out of this feeling.

This picture depicts how I feel today. I am in my unfocused place where I blew off a final exam today.  My excuse?  I needed to by a lamp.

 

Diary Entries From 1996

I was officially diagnosed with ADD in 2002, the year I started seeing a shrink. That was the year I adopted a dog and the year I nearly causing a head-on car collision after throwing a three inch high heel shoe at the driver who said something that really pissed me off. I married him later that year.

I found my diary from 1996 today.  If my parents, my teachers or the local police found this years ago, maybe I would have been diagnosed sooner and saved myself years of running in circles and doing things that could be defined by a court of law, insane:

Here are some things that I spent my precious time doing in 1996 (as noted in my diary):

1. Paying for a Mega Speed-reading course and then demanding my money back when I couldn't read War & Peace in a day. 

2. Trying to bring back the fad of The Rabbit Foot after my locksmith gave me one as a good luck.

3. Trying to solve The Rubic's Cube after solving three sides in the fifth grade. I never did.

4. Entering a Betty Crocker Bake-Off Contest with hopes of using that money towards a nose job.

5. Being flown to Florida for free to look at property developments in exchange for a free grill.  A waste of time. I couldn't fly home with the grill and if I did, where would one put it in a small studio apartment?

6. Late night crank calls to the Cocaine hot line with my friend, Zack.

7.  Reading MAD Magazine...this entry says it all...

JUST SAY NO TO DUGS

ADD symptom:  On a constant search for high stimulation, impulsive action; a state of aimless distractability...

Hot town, summer in the city
  Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty
  Been down, isn't it a pity
  Doesn't seem to be a shadow in the city.
                                    -The Lovin' Spoonful

Those lyrics reverberated in my head the past two days thanks to the break of rain and our unexpected yet welcomed guest, Hot Sunshine.

Now, I'm about to really date myself but summer now ain't what it used to be when I was a teen.  If your under 21 and reading this blog, please consult the Rock Hall of Fame and familiarize yourself with the artistic works of bands such as Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and The Who.  I do not mean to patronize those more youthful than I, but when my 18 year old cousin thought Roger Daltry was my downtown dermatologist, I thought this current generation might be in trouble.

Summer for me in the mid-to-late eighties meant rock concerts all summer long.  Tail gating in the parking lots with the smell of grilling dogs and the feeling of hot pavement under your feet. Losing your friends for the first two hours in the parking lot while having a tearful, overly-joyous reunion during the show. FYI: days before cell phones...

What I am about to share with you this very moment will forever prevent me from holding any position in political office. I thought about this long and hard whether or not I should share this very personal and private ADD side of me and the answer is yes because unless those political posters are airbrushed, you will never see my chicklet smile running for Congress.

This is how I spent my sticky concert nights in the:

Summer of '87:  Pink Floyd's Momentary Lapse of Reason Tour in NY sans Roger Waters. Smoking, what was referred to as "brown acid(?)". Gazing at a giant screen of running Alaskan Huskies during Dogs Of War, and, in sheer panic,thinking that the dogs had been unleashed on me. 

Summer of '87: Getting arrested, though not formally, for underage drinking during  Neil Young & The Blue Notes in Jersey.  Released almost immediately  after threatening to harm myself (Improv classes start paying off). 

Summer of '88: Drinking a bottle of Amaretto & Cherry Cola in a stretch limo heading to  Aerosmith's Permanent Vacation tour in NY and throwing it all up on the way home.

Summer of '89: The introduction of a fine, white powder.  Getting thrown out of seats for drunk & disorderly conduct at The Who Celebration Tour in Phili.

But I never inhaled.
 

Something That Vibrates

Everyday, my pockets are stuffed with long-winded, updated TO DO lists, my purse is waited down with a bulky out-dated PDA and I am startled every few minutes when I set my cooking clock to remind me of something as simple as a hard boiled egg on the stove or a much needed therapy appointment.
If you’ve never seen a hard boiled egg explode from over boiling, its quite the Mel Brooks scene.  It spontaneously combust all over the kitchen floor, your tiled back slash and your ceiling, leaving you with nothing but charred egg shells and a growling stomach.
I purchased an item tonight that I think any A.D.D’er can benefit from:
The VibraLITE 3 Vibrating Watch from a bedwetting site (not that I was googling bed wetting or anything) and I worry if that is in fact the direction I am heading in, waterproof underwear and all?  Do my friends and family pity my forgetfulness over festive conversation while I think their talking about the Mets and I have it all under control?

A comic I credit
dullman.com.
I don't know who drew it but
I like it.













ADD Symptom:  Blurting thoughts out inappropriately.

I was in the mist of cocktail conversation  in a circle of fancy film buffs at the Sundance Film Festival one winter, when one of the film buffs said, “I have an apt in New York and a house in Utah” and all of a sudden, in all seriousness,  I interrupted, “So you’re bi coastal”.  Silence.  More silence.  Silence followed by stares and the memory of an old E. F. Hutton commercial. Conversation is immediately halted and all eyes landed on my now very red face.   “No, she said, “that would be Los Angeles”.  The circle tightened some more, eventually squeezing me out. They didn’t take it as a joke nor did I intend that to be a joke.
I walked away thinking and swearing at that very moment that Park City, Utah was a coastal city. Was it not?  Well of coarse its not but it sounded like a good idea at the time, geographically impaired and all.

HIRED & FIRED

ADD Symptom:  Unable to stay focused on a game, project or work assignment; often jumping from one activity to the next without fully completing any job.

I have held many jobs over the three decades that I have been alive.  I have been hired and fired.  Repeatedly.  I used to take it personally although I don't anymore, for I realize it is was my undiagnosed condition and inability to focus on the simplest tasks and to simply follow through. 

I would like to share with you only a handful of the many jobs I have held in my earliest years of work:

Paper Girl: 11 years old.  FIRED. As luck would have it my older brother breaks his arm and I am appointed papergirl for the many weeks to follow. I would forget to pay my weekly bill of $12.50 until it amounted to some exorbitant fee and my Mom had to "pay the collectors off" just like the Sopranos. Highpoint of the job:  Getting baskets on my maroon ten speed bike Raleigh Grand Prix.

Chambermaid: 15 years old. FIRED. Forgot to close all the rooms windows before Hurricane Emily hit.  Highpoint of the job: Looking in guest's luggage and stealing  and smoking cigarettes with my devious co-worker Kelly Lynch.

Telemarketer: 16 years  old. FIRED.  Selling defunct water purification systems over the  phone and not realizing the manager had the ability to listen in on all of my "sales calls" which were really "crank calls". Highpoint of the job: Making hand puppets to my coworkers over my partition.

Factory Worker: 17 years old.  FIRED.  Working at a machine cutting stickers for lawnmowers down to size. Fired for complaining of boredom. Highpoint of the job: Working alongside a Harley Dude recently imprisoned for theft.

Deli worker/Meat Slicer: 18 years old.  FIRED.  Backing the company van into an oak tree while under the influence of  amphetamine sulphate. Highpoint of the job:  Getting speed in exchange for free roast beef subs to the drug runner, "Produce Bill".

Hostess: 19 years old. FIRED .  One of many hostessing jobs, got fired from this seafood restaurant  for calling my boss a neurotic bitch.  Highpoint of the job: Unlimited New England clam chowder.

Cocktail Waitress: 25 years old. FIRED.  Drinking repeatedly on the job at a cigar bar and spilling drinks repeatedly on costumers .  Highpoint of the job: Drinking repeatedly on the job.

Good Times.....

When a Cork Board Isn't Enough

If I can best illustrate what it looks like inside by brain, I think of Russell Crowe in a Beautiful Mind in a wooden shed, walls plastered with sheets of newspaper covered with frenetically scrawled inscriptions.  Only its not exactly vector calculus or encrypted top secrets I am trying to decipher. No, I'm just tying to figure out why I left the apartment in the first place.  Was  or was I finally going to buy that gallon of green paint and fulfill one of the many promises on my new years resolution 2003 (2003, really) or was it for that 39 cent stamp that's been lingering on my many list of things to do?  And if was for the stamp, what was I going to mail?  The thank you note to the hotel owner who treated us so generously in Mykanos last summer and if so is eight months too late for a thank you note?

If only I could live in A House Of Cork; corked walls and corked doors, corked tile around the tub and a corked kitchen sink.  Some of my greatest ides come between the dicing of onions and the gulping of Cabernet.

Beauty Tip:  Drink red wine from a straw to prevent tooth staining.  Expect stares.

I would be running for office if I was cork-covered. I'd have all the right words at my disposal 24/7 while I campaigned in a cork covered wagon across the great plains. I would never be at a loss for words in my house of cork because words would be tacked on every surface. Words would be my friend and not my enemy. I would never have to explain, in ten concise, award-winning words or less, to my "badgering west coast friend" what Web 2.0  is.  There is no real definitive term as to what Web 2.0 is anyway. 
"Its a term that was coined by Tim O'Reilly and it encompasses many things." I tell him thinking that would satiate him enough.
"Expaaain it!" he pushed on.
"I just don't have the words", I say to him.
"Oooowwww, yes you do.  You have to be able to explain this better!"
"Why?" I ask him.  "Is this going to be on the written exam?"

Wow, imagine if I had just said, "I don't know".  He probably would've suggested a little insulin shock therapy. "No, really, Kali, it'll get things moving!"

"I'll fax you a f*cking picture" is what I really wanted to say because I see what it is I just can't find the words.  Right now! Check back in ten minutes. They might be there.  Good friends don't deliberately mean to make you feel stupid  but they just don't know how difficult it is  pulling  data out from the slow moving card catalog in your brain. And thats exactly what it is ...its ain't Wikipedia up there, its a cob web covered, yellowing paper...card catalog. Perhaps a little insulin shock therapy  would do the trick.

What?

I forgot what I was going to write.