June 5, 2003

The following is a real life transcript of me talking to Fruan while under the influence of Nutrasweet. Me being ADHD, and nutrasweet being a trigger, this should provide some amusement to someone. Please enjoy.

Fruan:what are you up to?
NoctoVIBE:vibrating
NoctoVIBE:and thinking about daylogging
Fruan: ... vibrating?
NoctoVIBE:vibrating = bouncing off walls
NoctoVIBE:it's getting annoying
Fruan: So, I'm guessing you've had some sugar ;o)
NoctoVIBE:nope
NoctoVIBE:=)
NoctoVIBE:So have you ever wondered what it is like to be an ADHD adult?
NoctoVIBE:so ok Caffeine slows me down
NoctoVIBE:I think what it is, is that I catch up with myself
NoctoVIBE:but right now I'm bouncing
NoctoVIBE:I don't know how to explain it... but it's kind of fun but it's getting annoying too
Fruan: It sounds like you need to vent a lot of energy into something.
NoctoVIBE:I'm hoping it will go away so that I can sleep
Fruan: ::nods:: I see.
NoctoVIBE:but if I could focus that would help
Fruan: Anything I could do to help?
NoctoVIBE:not really
NoctoVIBE:make me count from 100 backward
NoctoVIBE:heheh
Fruan: Heh.
NoctoVIBE:I would get bored at like 99 and stop =)
Fruan: Hah.
NoctoVIBE:ooo! what is that?! A shiny thing!
NoctoVIBE:my eyes hurt!!!
Fruan: Eh? What from?
NoctoVIBE:FROM BEING OPEN
NoctoVIBE:do you ever get to the point where your mind is racing
NoctoVIBE:but your body is asleep?
Fruan: ::nods::
NoctoVIBE:that is how I am
NoctoVIBE:right now!!
Fruan: Well... I guess you just need something to occupy your mind.
NoctoVIBE:heh
NoctoVIBE:I'm not sure
NoctoVIBE:or I need to focus on calming down
NoctoVIBE:Self Discipline
Fruan: ::nods::
NoctoVIBE:even listen to System of a Down?
Fruan: A little.
NoctoVIBE:HEH that is how I feel
NoctoVIBE:that is how it sounds in my head.
Fruan: I see.
NoctoVIBE:heh SUGAR!
NoctoVIBE:WAKE UP WHY'D YOU LEAVE THE KIDS UP ON THE TABLE!!!
NoctoVIBE:let me think
Fruan: ::blinks::
Fruan: You ok?
NoctoVIBE:am I?
NoctoVIBE:I'm not sure
NoctoVIBE:I am getting a headache from being over stimulated
NoctoVIBE:I'm almost shaking.
Fruan: Awww :o(
NoctoVIBE:heh
NoctoVIBE:yeah it sucks
* NoctoVIBE rocks back and forth with pent up energy like a crazy woman
NoctoVIBE:*sips my coffee*
NoctoVIBE:I'm getting better as we speak, slowly
Fruan: ::smiles:: Good. I'm glad.
NoctoVIBE:but the worst part is that I repeat myself and actions over and over
Fruan: Aww :o(

As of actually posting this I am ok, but while I was thinking about it I decided to log my adventures with ADHD, it was rather fun while it lasted, and it lasted for about 2 hours. Now that my shakes are gone and I am more able to focus, I think I will head to bed, now that I can sleep. Enjoy your daylog of two hours in the life of a hyper girl.

I AM NO LONGER POTENTIALLY HOMELESS!!!

Well, I'm probably jumping the gun a bit here. But I have found an apartment in Philly--a studio. 11'x14' plus a 5'x7' alcove and a seperate kitchen (not an eat-in, though, unfortunately).

It's not in the greatest neighborhood (or really, it's on the edge of a good neighborhood and a bad one), but I'm across the street from the North Star Bar, which is a nice, small concert venue--lotsa smaller artists. (It's also where I saw Wesley Willis--oh glorious night of nights!) Also, I know the neighborhoods pretty well (I grew up in one of them), so it's not exactly unfamiliar territory. And I'm around the corner from a very good friend, which is even better.

I'm going to see the inside on Monday with my stepfather, who is sort of my backup against getting ripped off (wiley Brooklynite). I just hope my credit rating is good. I'm not worried about the references, just the credit rating. I have no idea what it looks like.

Dear god, let me get this place. I want to be closer to work. Closer to friends. Closer to Tim. Closer to my theater troop. I can't move back in with my parents!

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And in other good news, looks like Tim and I are definitely off to the Field Day concert! Yay! Radiohead! Beck! Elliott Smith! Beastie Boys! Liz Phair! Blur! Sigur Ros! The Roots! Omigod!

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UPDATE
I just spoke to the rental agency--the apartment is on the third floor (good--top floor), and I'm going to view it on Monday. Yay!

"Education is man's going forward from cocksure ignorance to thoughtful uncertainty."

-- Kenneth G. Johnson

I must have been consuming the equivalent of mental burritos yesterday, because I had nothing but brain farts going off the whole afternoon -- during one my tutoring sessions, no less. Come to think of it, make that a mental bean burrito, two slices of intellectual prune cake, and a giant order of cerebral onion rings. Beer battered, please. My case was so bad, I almost expected to slip and projectile-vomit half my frontal lobe onto the table. Either way, it wouldn't really have mattered. My pupil, a bowl-headed Korean boy, probably wouldn't have cared or even noticed. He seems to have more interest in watching the flowers grow in the window box than paying attention to anything I have to say. I would almost argue that doing that would have been more productive than our last session.

Part of the reason for all the mental blanks, I have to admit, was a lack of preparedness on my part. Adding to my laziness to come up with anything coherent to teach until about three hours before our lesson began, the library and computer lab decided to enjoy some spontaneous holiday that nobody else had heard about. Or, more specifically, the personnel involved decided to close up shop and take the day off without giving anybody any prior notice.

Which, in a cruel backhanded way, was exactly what the boys upstairs decided to do, in a situation where I needed them most. The now seemingly oxymoronic idea of German efficiency (which, I've discovered, really consists of excessive red tape and blind adherence to procedure so that staff can more easily bunk their duties) is subliminally penetrating even my basic thought processes.

It was a royal mess. I stuttered, stammered, went blank, lost myself twice completely, and just gave up and moved on in a few places where I found I simply couldn't go any further, either for fear of redundancy or of simple uncertainty of how to explain the topic in a way which we both could understand. I had been hired with the foreknowledge that I hadn't had any direct prior experience teaching English as a second language, and that weak spot in my CV was beginning to unfurl itself in all its hateful glory. Even though I have always been comparably good with language in terms of reading, writing, and vocabulary, my greatest weakness has been and has remained spontaneous, off-the-cuff speaking. I used to stutter badly as a child (lack of steady interaction between other people my age with whom I could converse only worsened things) and still often put my foot in my mouth even when it comes down to things such as simple conversation.

All this helped impress upon me what I had so often heard repeated by one of my old fiction instructors back in my sophomore year at university. "Whenever you walk into any kind of class setting," he said, "all eyes and ears are going to be on you. It's your job as an educator and as a speaker to ensure that you never make the mistake of talking faster than you can think. Forget losing your audience's attention span -- there is no worse way to kill your credibility by suddenly running out of things to say in mid-sentence." I suppose I have to take that comment to heart more than ever and give up the assumption that I can thoroughly teach barely glanced-at material a scant hour after I run it off in the copier.

Things will get better, but there's that sneaking suspicion that my personal environment is having a probable effect on my work habits. In light of that, I guess now would be a worse time than ever to go to France. After all, I don't need my brain to go on strike in protest of me forcing it to work more than thirty-five hours a week and beyond the age of sixty.

Lunch break.

I have the car today, so I tore down Mira Mesa Boulevard to the bank, Steppenwolf and The Guess Who on the CD player. I took out forty dollars: a ten, two fives, ten ones, and a roll of quarters. I walked to a barber shop (most emphatically not a salon) I hadn't been to before but had recently noticed and got an eight dollar haircut (tip included) from a woman who asked me what I wanted and then silently and efficiently provided it. Back in the car. I swung over to the library and picked up James Ellroy's Crime Wave--perfect summer reading. Overdue charge of fifty cents on two Johnny Cash CDs at the counter. I renewed the CDs and paid with a dollar, pocketing the change to pay Sarah back the two bits I borrowed earlier this week. In the car and to the gas station to fill 'er up, then back to work one hour after I left.

Every element of the above is great. This is better:

Tomorrow Angela and I drive to Las Vegas. On Friday night we get to help celebrate Roninspoon's birthday, then Saturday night the Rogue Samurai Utensil and I will attend Igloowhite's bachelor party.

Yep, you heard me, porcupine. Some lucky lady finally got the man who wrote Happy Birthday from Planet Motherfucker, and I get to usher him out of bachelorhood and into the ranks of the hitched alongside the guy who wrote How Warrant nearly killed me. I would give you details when I get back, really I would, but you know the rule: What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

Bada-bing!