paying attention
I swore I'd get around to writing something intelligible in here again, and I guess that time is now. I just never know what I'll finally end up writing when I sit down in front of a keyboard, sometimes. This bit is a perfect example: it began its life as something else, and has only found its way here through a strange metamorphosis that I could not have expected. Still, when you have to write, you write - no matter what it is that you are writing. Structure and organization can always come later, because the desire or inspiration to craft words is not always there. I have to wait until the muse strikes, and then the words just flow. One of those lovely side-effects of ADHD that has shaped my life - when you focus, you're a laser beam counting molecules, but the rest of the time you're running around managing ten different thoughts at once. I tried cleaning my apartment yesterday, and wound up vacuuming the floor until I hit the closet, at which point I remembered that I needed to put laundry away, and while doing that I saw that the sink needed cleaning, and then realized that I had a picture frame I meant to hang up by the sink, and while getting the cleaner for the sink I recognized that the dishes needed washing - and so on. I mean, I eventually got it all done, but stop and start, stop and start. I can ignore it and focus if I want to - but it took years of training, and it is an act of will. You either distract the system with a lot of noise (I still take notes with three different colored pens and two highlighters), or you make slow slow progress. Admittedly, you make slow progress on about ten different things at once, but the rest of the world would rather see single accomplishments than simultaneous progress and a final rain of multiple results.
Mostly, it helps to have a strong source of emotional inspiration. I do not kid when I speak of my need for muses.
Most of what you see published here has actually undergone one or two passes of the editor's pen. I know that it frequently looks rushed, but it is what it is. The above is mostly raw and unstructured. Pure. Call it a thought experiment spilled on the page for the rest of you to read. I have to put it to bed now, because I am starting to read it over - and to edit it. I want to leave this first draft free in the wild unfinished and unrefined.