Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Margaret. I’m Totally Lying. My Name Is Jackie.

(NOTE: I’m in the process of deleting my stuff from Gather and saving it elsewhere– to my hard drive, and somewhere online, in case my hard drive dies in a fiery car crash. If you’ve already read this, ignore it. It’s old and outdated, anyhoo, since I had to quit Adderall when I began to resemble Nicole Richie in body type. I still miss my boyfriend.) Written November 27, 2006.

As I have mentioned before, I am attention-deficit. I have Attention-Deficit Disorder. I’ve had it for as long as I could remember. I spent my entire childhood missing assignments because I never heard the teacher assigning them- I was too busy doodling on my arm or watching a mosquito circle the classroom. In the unlikely event that knowledge actually managed to enter my skittish brain, my attention-deficit memory would promptly discard it in favor of trivia like, “It’s pizza day for lunch!”

My brother was ADHD- he had the hyperactivity component. This meant that, like me, he could not pay attention to save his life, and he stood on top of his desk at school, and sometimes yelled gibberish. Ritalin helped, but at one point he was placed in Special Ed, just so they could keep him in his seat. No one noticed I was ADD, because they were too busy watching Kevin spaz out.

Many people think ADD is no big deal. “Boo hoo,” they think, “get a Day Planner and write stuff down.” That would be an excellent suggestion, if only:

1. I could remember to buy a Day Planner,

2. I could remember to take my wallet to the store,

3. I could find a pen, without becoming distracted by the computer above the drawer with the pens in it,

4. I could find the Day Planner,

5. I could remember to look in the Day Planner,

6. I could trust myself to remember to write anything in the Day Planner, and

7. Was I just cooking something? It smells like something’s cooking… oh crap.

I can be walking to the bathroom to pee, and I’ll become distracted by something shiny. Or non-shiny. Thirty minutes later, I will be making a paper clip chain, and my bladder will be close to exploding, and I’ll remember, “Oh! I was going to the bathroom!” I have yet to wet my pants due to one of my attention-deficit digressions, but it is inevitable that I will.

Enter Ritalin. I took it for a couple of years. It wears off quickly, leaving one a little fatigued. After you take it for a while, it’s all diminishing returns. Besides, the pharmacist always scrutinizes you like you walked up to the counter with a scrip for a “one kilo of pharmaceutical grade cocaine.” It gets old.

Finally, my doctor prescribed Adderall XR. Love! True love, I tell you! Lasts all day, no edginess, smooth as silk, and looooook at me focus! Woohoo!

It’s not all wine and roses, though. My boyfriend Adderall does help me focus, it’s true, but sometimes he has me focus on all the wrong things. Sometimes I focus on Gather all day long. Sometimes I’m organizing my coupons for two hours, as I sit amid teetering stacks of clean laundry that, by all rights, have higher priority than coupons I’ll forget to take with me to the grocery store. If only Adderall helped me to focus on cleaning; but alas- I have yet to emulate the girl in the Don’t Take Crystal Meth commercials who cleans her grout with a toothbrush in an amphetamine-fueled frenzy.

Adderall XR is my boyfriend, and he makes my life better, and my bladder thanks him for it. I just wish he’d push me toward all of the files in my briefcase, because an amphetamine-fueled frenzy of work would really make the ol’ checking account happy. But here I am, Gathering instead. If I’m lucky, I’ll earn $1 today. Can someone gently push me toward my briefcase?

This is my love letter to amphetamines. I love you, Adderall XR. You’re not perfect, but I love you.