The Middle

I finally got to my doctor's appointment and am properly medicated. My horoscope told me this week I will explore the sumptuous middle of life, and gosh, am I looking forward to that!

I went karaoke-ing last night, and it was really good. The selection was great, the bar passed out Sargetto's party mix, everyone really brought it in their performances. I sang "Strong Enough" by Cher and "Bizarre Love Triangle" by New Order. If you sing a song people want to dance too, they really don't care whether you are singing it well. Not that I wasn't singing beautifully, like a delicate little sparrow. A drunken little sparrow.

I wasn't very drunk.

I'm going to read all the great literature this summer, all of it, every single poem, essay, and book, and if anyone has a "great book" they thought was particularly readable and moving, please suggest it. I don't want to tackle something that no one is brave enough to say is actually crappy, and then get disheartened and give up.

I read "Beloved" this week and now I'm reading "Kafka on the Shore." I think it would also help if the books you suggested were about women. Right now I'm more into those. It wasn't always that way and it won't always be that way- for instance, I loved "I Married a Communist." Just if I'm gonna read about an existential crisis, I want it to be a person who has to deal with similar stuff to me. Lone rogue men, roaming the countryside, sleeping with ladies and then getting out of there in the morning because they know they can't be tied down what with this existential crisis on their hands is not very moving to me right now. I could read something about soldiers though. That could be good.

More ADD

After skimming the book Bryan linked to on the last post, I am totally, completely, can't talk me out of it, ain't gonna let nobody turn me round convinced that I have ADD.

The guys who wrote that book said even if you're treating the ADD with drugs, it's essential you get a job and a spouse that both can work with your ADD. They suggest you get an assistant to handle all the niggly scheduling and common courtesy crap you can't be bothered with, with your unique and visionary vision mind.

I love the shit out of that suggestion. I am going to get an assistant. It may take me 40 years to accumulate the money for this, but it will be done. Someone to return my calls, my emails, pay my bills, keep me organized, get me out of the door, find my keys- I cannot wait for my assistant!

My two major romantic relationships were with people who had diagnoses of ADD. What a horrible, horrible couple of decisions to make. It makes sense I liked them in the beginning, since we had unique visionary vision minds in common, but someone in the partnership needs to be able to get places on time, and do the laundry. That someone should really not be me- the laundry will only take energy away from my absurd and unworkable plans. Then I will stew in resentment for laundry taking away momentum from my unwise ideas.

I need to be me, is what I'm saying. I need to be my ADD me.

I had an unwise idea today, which is I'd really like to be a Liza Minnelli impersonator, and I think I could pull it off. We look a lot alike. And then I could buy this outfit, and write it off as a business expense. And become a billionaire.

Slacker

So it has occurred to me of late that I have ADD. I am talking to a doctor soon to get a diagnosis, but here is my evidence:

1) My teachers always said I was smart, but I needed to work harder and be less chatty
2) I hate board games because I hate learning the directions and I hate having to wait through other people's stupid turns
3) I've gotten in trouble at 3 jobs for surfing the internet too much
4) I find sitting through meetings torturous
5) Right now I am supposed to be preparing for a math final, but I am writing this post instead.
6) ADD often goes with depression/anxiety in women- which makes sense, because it is depressing and anxiety producing to know you won't be able to concentrate on what you want to do the way another person might be able to.

I have only been able to be good at school for two years out of my 28. The first year was my senior year of college, where I took almost exclusively religion classes. The second year was the year I did in law school. Law school is sort of the bomb for people who can't concentrate, because your entire grade is dependent on one essay exam in a really high pressure environment. I do much much better in 3 hour spurts of pressure. And I'm very good at working with ideas, playing ideas off of each other, because I'm pretty creative. I'm also good at picking the right words. I'm just not good with the kind of consistent attention you need to learn a skill set like math or language. That's actually a REALLY important thing I can't do.

Point being, I wish I had meds now, or better yet, three months ago when I was starting this class.

Ok, back to the grind.

I Love Musical Theater, It Touches Me as Profoundly as 'The Wire'

I've been listening to the Meatloaf Pandora station a lot. Meatloaf started in, and interspersed his commercial singing career, with musical theater work, most famously in "Rocky Horror Picture Show." I love Meatloaf. I want to be Meatloaf. "I would do anything for love," "Paradise by the Dashboard Light," "It's all coming back to me now"- they are all crescendo. Crescendo followed by crescendo followed by crescendo- he is throttling you with this music.

I need lots of sensation to pay attention to anything. Intensity is the name of the game. If things aren't very intense, there is some space in my brain to get worried about whatever- what my friends think of me, what I'm not doing with my life, why no one will ever love me. But musical theater! You gotta be goddamn PRESENT for that shit to work. And of course people love you when you're performing in a musical- could you get more lovable?! You're dancing, you're singing, you're being extremely expressive with your face. You are the definition of lovable.

I was the Baker's Wife in Into The Woods during Near West Theater's summer teen production the summer before my freshman year of high school. That role is a strong contender for me peaking. I got to die in the show. What could be more thrilling than getting to play a death scene as a 13 year old?

I was reminded of how much I love that show by this article in the New York Times. His lyrics are so dark and vulnerable, and also really cheesy and on the nose. They are such a thrill to sing to a room of people sitting in the dark.



Sondheim had a pretty bad childhood- he was alternately neglected and used as an emotional crutch by a mom struggling with mental illness.



God, people will put up with so much sadness in a performance if it's musical. As long as you sing about depressing things, it's more than a-ok, they'll eat it up. Or rather, I will.

Grown Up

I thought a lot about composting yesterday. Some stuff is easier to compost than others- carrot peels are very easy to turn into some nice dirt, dog shit is harder. But it can be done. You have to add the right stuff, cover it with the right stuff, let it sit, turn it, let it sit, turn it, mix in more of the right stuff- you can turn the shittiest shit into great soil, but the shittier the shit the longer it takes and the harder it is. (If you can't tell, I don't actually know the specifics of composting dog shit. I skimmed an article about it once and it looked hard.)

And I think that's part of being a good person- turning the shitty shit you got handed into some quality soil you can grow stuff in. But you can't be in denial about what you're composting. Face up to it! You got dog shit on your hands!

It's sort of a 'buck stops here' thing. I'm not going to just wrap this in a plastic bag and put it in the trash to pass off to the sanitation department and let it be preserved forever in a landfill. I will be the last person to deal with this particular piece of dog shit. I will use the dirt to grow carrots, and then someone will have to compost carrot peels, which you can do in your kitchen with some worms.

I think I so often have equated being a grownup with being hard on yourself, and for some people who maybe got away with a lot when they were kids they might need to be a little harder on themselves. But I have always been hard on myself, and was a very frightened little kid, and I think being a grownup for me is about being a lot kinder to myself. Sticking up for that little kid.

In sum, dog shit and scared little kids. 28.