Quirky Blogger in the HOUSE!

(Steph’s “professional pic.”)

(The one I prefer.)

I love my Steph. I could leave it at that and be perfectly happy. But then, you wouldn’t know how we met, or how we fell in love, or any of the saucy details, so I’ll continue. I began San Diego Momma officially in January-ish, and Steph’s blog was one of the first I commented on to introduce myself. She instantly responded back and was so warm and freaking funny, that I fell hard. Since then, she’s been like a best friend I never see. She reaches out to me anytime I need help, has offered her supreme WordPress services to me with no strings attached, and is just overall the biggest love bomb you can imagine. Here she is.

So when Deb asked me to guest post, I was all, “ZOMG! YES! SQUEE!” because I happen to think Deb rocks the casbah. Then I got all skitzy like, “What will I write about? I never know what to write.” Then I realized, “Oooooh! Opportunity to write someplace where the people I know IRL don’t go! Yes! I will write many crazy things about my family and friends, safe in the knowledge that they will NEVER FIND OUT!” except I’m pretty sure I’m going to post a link to this post on my own blog, and BAM! Idea killed.

So instead, I’m going to write about being ADD and why I’ve chosen not to medicate myself. First, I had no idea I had ADD until my son was diagnosed. In retrospect, someone should have noticed, but if you’ll pardon me for bragging, I was a bright kid who developed a lot of compensatory techniques. I managed to get through school with good grades, and I was relatively unimpaired scholastically. Behaviorally? Well, that’s a whole different ball of wax. But that’s another post all its own.

For those of you who don’t have ADD, imagine trying to process information with one part of your brain while another part of your brain is saying, “Hey! Let’s go see what’s going on over at Twitter! Ooh. I bet there are blogs to read! What’s on TV? I’m bored! Ooh, remember that time in 7th grade when Michelle Petersen was all, ‘Everyone hates you’ and it turned out it was because she blabbed about your diary? That sucked. Mmmm…I wish we had some cookies” over and over. It’s kind of like having a hyperactive five year old in your head. So to cope, you develop techniques to compensate. Or you spaz out all the time and never have any kind of social life, but you probably have a ROCKING good time all by yourself so it doesn’t even matter that no one can stand to talk to you for more than five seconds, bitches.

Sorry. Digressed. ANYway, I could take medication to alleviate this, but I’ve chosen not to, mostly because I’m afraid that I wouldn’t be “me” anymore. Which…stupid because I gave my kid medication, and he’s still himself. He’s, in fact, even more rad because he can actually retain information for more than a day. That’s another thing about having ADD – you really don’t retain things until they’ve been repeated CONSTANTLY. So you wind up leaving little Post-It notes all over the place reminding yourself of events. Or you set up your BlackBerry to keep track of your tasks. Or you use Word to create a daily schedule for yourself which you then laminate and hang up so you can check stuff off as it gets done. Or maybe all of those things.

Digressing. Again. What I was saying was that I’m not…ooh, “Total Drama Island” is on Cartoon Network! I love that show, even though it’s totally for kids. WhatEVS, it’s hilarious and awesome. Plus, it’s something to watch with Lenna, and that’s always rad because she and I rarely do things together anymore. I guess it’s the pre-teen drama queen thing which she has totally got going on these days. Oh God, I’m babbling again.

Maybe I’ll try Ritalin after all.