Eccentric Flower:199810/i must mess with something immediately
From Eccentric Flower
«October 1998 «Eccentric Flower
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sixteen october ninety eight eleven a m i must mess with something immediately Would you hurt me if I said I'm thinking of redecorating in here again? I get bored, true, but that's not what's behind this. I've left the top page of [former domain] unchanged for ages, and since I'm trying hard to make it defunct, it probably won't change in the future. I have found a design there I like. (By 'defunct' I don't mean anything really bad, folks. I am arranging to sub-let parts of [domain] to other journallers. None of my stuff is outside the 'alewife' area anymore ... and none of theirs will be outside their own little fiefdoms ... so there is no longer any reason to look in the top directory of [domain].) Anyway - I have had a design in mind for Alewife Bayou since the beginning, but I have been unable to realize it. The itch begins again, so this weekend I may have another stab at it. Don't worry, the little scrawly faces aren't going anywhere. I love them too. But this blue and brown gradient was always a stopgap and it needs to vanish. The Alewife pages were always supposed to be greenish - how I got into this brown detour I'll never know. - - - My friend Eric has suggested to me on a few occasions that I might have Attention Deficit Disorder. This provokes such a fierce look from me that he generally qualifies it immediately. I've worked with ADD kids. I used to tutor one. He was completely unfocused except when he was a Ritalin zombie. So that can't be me, right? For all my bouncing between projects, when I get into one I have the extreme concentration demanded of a programmer. I worked on the same code in two four-hour stretches yesterday without getting up from my desk, moving my body much, or even really being aware of outside stimuli. Programmer trance - it's a job requirement. I do the same when I'm writing. But that's exactly the point, Eric replies. Most people misunderstand ADD. It doesn't mean you can't focus - it means the switch is broken, that it's either all or nothing. That you give your full brain to something or you can't concentrate on anything. That your brain, when not in the trancelike state, has a problem with filtering out information - that there is literally too much happening and your brain spins in place merrily, trying to choose. Heaven knows I often get the feeling of having too much happening in my head. I also bore easily - I get bored while driving, while riding the subway, any period of enforced awake idleness longer than fifteen seconds - and so my head finds things to do. Sometimes I mess with whatever's around, and cause problems. (My significant other says I understand the cat's bad behavior so well because the cat also makes trouble when he's bored - which is usually.) I generally bring books and so forth everywhere I go, to avoid this problem, but I note that I still prefer driving by myself, and I still don't mind not having a radio in my car. Why? Because I sing to myself, recite bits of story dialogue, hum, and who knows what else - and it seems to be a useful outlet for my brain, one which I can't indulge when someone else is in the car due to embarrassment. - - - I would be amiss (ah, would that it were that easy to be a miss!) if I didn't mention that today is my friend Marc's birthday. I don't ordinarily believe in birthdays, mine or other people's ... which is a postcard I'll write one day ... but Marc is my favorite alien in a human body, and he has so often been the recipient of various abuses when I get bored that there is no paper large enough to hold all the apologies I owe him. This quote, which my remark above reminds me of, is one of his favorites: Wadsworth: How many husbands have you had? © columbine |
