Attention Deficit (introduction)

One reason why it's far better I work alone is that my sleep schedule is so unpredictable. I've used alarm clocks, three at a time. Yes, I can get up, but it usually means going through the day mindlessly tired. I've made huge, embarrassing errors at work just from sleepiness.

It's almost as unworkable for me to try to go to sleep at a regular time. Usually, I get enthralled with something, and this tends to happen more when I'm tired. I'll fall into bed so sleep deprived I can't think straight. If I go to bed early, I'll end up being awake and restless.

So, with exceptions, I go to sleep when I feel exhausted and I wake up whenever I do and schedule my day from there. This usually entails planning to read and write  long after I'm mentally capable of doing anymore. In other words, I'll plan on being up working until 2 a.m. but I'm wear out by midnight, sleep, get up when I do (now, almost always by 8), writing out my schedule for that day and picking up where I left off.  

This might seem like luxury, being able to sleep as long as I want, but it also means always being out of sync with everybody else. That is to say, if you have a "real job" people have to be there at a certain time in the morning just to make sure they can work as a team and do everything as planned. Social cooperation is the main reason. In other words, there's the constant reminder that you are alone.

Lack of a predictable sleep pattern, and periods of sleeping few hours than is healthy, is a symptom of Adult Attention Deficit Disorder. I have a longer post coming up about this. Let's just say, it's better that I choose to work alone. 

Moving Hell 2: Injury and Delay

The apartment manager told me that they were likely going to replace the range. Despite the fact that it would mean having wasted my time cleaning it, I hope that they do. I wouldn't doubt if this one goes back to '70s or even the '60s. The range isn't why I chose the apartment, but a newer one (I'm thinking they might buy used) would be a plus.

Let me be clear, it was clean on the surface. Under the top, though, it was filthy. When I saw all the old grease, I wondered if you put two cockroaches in there, how many more cockroaches would it create from that food source alone? I'd give it a ballpark of 5,000, but you might as well stop counting after 800. Considering one or two are enough to make me twitch when I see them, hundreds are seizure-inducing.

Last night, I twisted my ankle, an injury unconnected to the move. I was taking out the trash at Dad's house and stepped on a gumball from one of those trees. It hurts, but I've been elevating it, putting ice on it, been taking massive amounts of aspirin and have been walking with a cane. I've been rewarded that it hasn't swollen. Damage from the internal swelling, I'm told, can be worse than the initial sprain.

The truly heavy work of the move is days away. Sunday, I hope.  Then I'll actually be living in the place, of course. But I'll be packing up, sorting and moving smaller items for days or weeks. The good thing is, I have time to do it like this.

The bad thing is, of course, that even by the standards of taking my time and keeping it orderly, it's taking forever. I mean, the apartment wasn't extraordinarily dirty, far from it, but the cleaning is taking forever.

But that's part of me and part of my troubles on the job. It seems that everything I do takes longer than anyone else. I'm not saying that as just a gripe. It's true. Every boss, every coworker I've had has noted it. It's what led me to abuse amphetamine and caffeine and part of the reason I'm on disability now. It's not that I'm lazy about it either. I tend to space, my mind wanders or I overthink things. And it's one thing if you're doing it on the job, you might be accused of being lazy. It's quite another if you're moving into a place and it's taking forever because you're cleaning things too slowly.

What happens if I just go faster? I panic. I begin to abuse stimulants because I constantly fear that I'm not fast enough. In fact, I tend to panic and freeze up if anybody watches what I'm doing. I joined theater just to try to get over that, but it was a disaster. I have that problem, but then I also have marginal speech deafness. My hearing has been tested perfect, but I if there are any distractions in public, I can't understand people.  For most the time in my life, I wasn't able to hear music lyrics. ADD medications helped with that. I changed my music collection as it totally changed the way I appreciated music. As a child and adolescent, I had a terrible problem recognizing faces. That did begin to get better in my twenties, thank goodness.

That, and the fact that I preferred to play alone as a child makes me wonder about Asperger's Syndrome. But I didn't have parents who gave any credence to psychiatry or neurology, or medicine in general, and my next brother had profound retardation. It was a great irony of my parent's that they and their family were beset most by medical problems that they found dubious, for religious reasons. The upshot was, any problems I had were dwarfed by my brother's. He needed my parent's attention more. Their couldn't deny his problems, but they could they could deny mine.

I rambled. Yes because I'm up late, but I went to bed early and got up in the middle of the night. I'll get an early start tomorrow. Soon, I'll be moved, and soon after that, I'll be settled.