That's Right, I Read Dostoevsky

"It's a great thing when you realize you still have the ability to surprise yourself. Makes you wonder what else you can do..." -Lester Burnham, American Beauty.

I finished The Brothers Karamazov. 

I. Me. Steve. I did it. I read every word of the 1,045 pages of Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. Or, more accurately, Andrew MacAndrew's English translation thereof. 

You can put it on the board, yes.

Ok, so, I am making more of a big deal of it than even I consider it to really be, but... disregarding Harry Potter books, I just have a record of not finishing books that I start, especially books of significant length.

I am eager to learn more about the book I just read and to say thoughtful things about it, but now I am focused on writing about the accomplishment of actually having read it.

1,045 pages sounds daunting. I bought the book at the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport on May 30, I am pretty sure I began reading it on the flight to Denver I took that day. I am not certain that I got even 10 pages in. 

I completed it shortly after midnight on August 15th. 77 days. That averages to 13.5 pages per day. 13.5 pages per day. Suddenly doesn't sound so daunting, eh? I had set a goal of a mere 10 pages per day, amounting to a desired completion date of September 15. Exceeding my goal by an average of 3.5 pages per day amounted to completing my reading project a month early. 

Of course there were some days when I read zero pages, and some, especially in the last week or so, where I am pretty sure I took down a full 100 pages in 24-hour spans. Pretty sure I did that at least once as the book got riveting towards the end.

Half-baked Calamities Jane

Sometimes... No... Oftentimes, I initiate things and I finish them not. Or do I? No, the battlefield is strewn with... Ugh, jeez, did I really just write that?

Routine is so difficult to establish. I have been getting to bed around 10pm many nights recently,maybe 10:30, interspersed with late nights like tonight where I feel completely thrown off the rails.

I ate meat this past day. I am a vegetarian. I forgot to ask the Taco Bellies to substitute my beef for beans thus my fresco soft shell tacos came back with beef. No ex-girlfriends were present to judge me so I went and ate me a beefy taco. I then went to a Twins game and decided that'd be a fine time to go ahead and, since I'd already broken my vegetarian hitting streak, indulge in a delicious Kramwrkczuk's bratwurst and mighty fine and delicious it was. 

My party and I adjourned to Annie's in Dinkytown where I proceeded to order the California burger, with a veggie patty. Let vegetarianism re-commence. Now I know on which day I last ate meat and I eagerly await discovering how long I can go without doing so again.

Meditation (And Other) Progress

I just completed a 20-minute meditation session, the longest session yet. My goal right now is simply 10 minutes/day. That will stay the goal. I understand the object of meditation to be to clear one's mind completely and be able to focus solely on breathing. I am definitely a long way from that, and I seem to recall once reading that it can take over a year of practice before one can really start achieving such a state of... ? Quiet?

I feel some immediate benefits from the practice, though. It is relaxing. I try to breathe as deeply and slowly as possible, at as consistent a pace as possible. A few times I noticed I would inhale more quickly when my mind would get carried away and I was less focused on the breathing. Keeping the measured breathing pace thus acts as a physical indicator of how my mind is functioning and how, uhhh... centered?... I am staying.

I do not watch the clock while I am meditating. I have one hidden from view and I do not check it until I am pretty confident ten minutes have passed and so far I have yet to check it and find the time is not up. In fact, I find I have a decent sense of how much time has passed. I was rather hoping 20 minutes may have passed during this recent session and almost exactly that had (may have been 21!).

I have now gone to bed at around 10pm or shortly after for three consecutive nights, an astonishing accomplishment by my standards. I take 6mg of melatonin and I fall asleep while watching Arrested Development. Such a manic show may seem like an odd choice to fall asleep to, but, I think the melatonin helps. It is usually really hard for me to just turn the lights out and fall asleep. I have to be absolutely dead tired, or my mind will usually start acting up and I catch a major 2nd wind.

Waking times have been a little less consistent. This morning I stirred at about 3:15 which means I am probably mildly sleep-deprived? I've read that, while we all hear about the 8 hours of sleep we all need, the actual amount of sleep a person needs varies by individual, usually ranging from about 6-8.5 hours/night, and we all have to figure out for ourselves what our requirement is. I really have no clue what mine is. Good, consistent sleep has long been a big struggle. I would love to get on a cycle that will allow me to get some insight on my sleep requirement. Anyway, yesterday I awoke shortly after 6am, the morning before I believe it was shortly after 5am, maybe 5:15. So... no consistent wake time. I guess that's a shame because I've actually also heard that it is even more important to have a consistent waking time than it is a consistent bedtime.

Heartbroken? Have Your Cake

For the last 6 months, whenever I've been in a restaurant, driving, walking through a mall, listening to Pandora at work, sitting at a ballgame, or anywhere I might be exposed to music, I've been much more acutely aware of the constant presence of love songs, especially those about heartbreak. If you are me, most songs about heartbreak are excruciatingly unpleasant listening when you're actually going through it. For my suffering, I would like to reward myself with a self-appointed position of authority on songs about heartbreak and I would like to declare the best and worst songs out there about the topic.

Two caveats: I am leaving Bruce Springsteen out of this discussion because I am biased in his favor ("I'm Goin' Down" would probably win best song by a landslide... "Landslide" being a song just a little on the good side of the good/bad heartbreak-song spectrum, incidentally. Both FM and SP versions), and I am limiting the songs for consideration to those songs that I have encountered repeatedly in the last 6 months without seeking them out, so, of course this is heavily biased to songs popular right now. I'm just having fun, let's not over-think this. I know you're not over-thinking this, I am. Look, just read on, ok?

-Worst song about heartbreak:
That "if you ever leave me darling, leave some morphines at my door... cause it would take a whole lot of medication..." song. I am pretty sure it was this one that had me close to walking out of both that Soho pizza joint on Hennepin Ave one day and a Target the next thanks to its presence. I am not even going to dignify its existence by looking up title and artist or checking whether or not I got that opening line verbatim. Good god, dude, too many people do not understand how devastated you can be by heartbreak and life can still go on, too many drug addictions instigated, don't reinforce that mentality. People remain in unhealthy relationships based on the kind of fears that song articulates. And, I mean, it's just a bad, pathetic song. This song had some stiff competition from that "now you're just somebody that I used to know" song, and that, uhhh... jeez, there's another pretty bad one out there in solid circulation right now, I'm pretty sure, it just slipped my mind. Or maybe I just thought of the "morphine" song twice, it's that bad.

-Best song about heartbreak:
"The Distance," Cake.
Catchy, rockin', good music, very clever and evocative lyrics ("they deftly maneuver and muscle for rank"), somehow honest while also being hilarious. I often think the most resonant expressions of emotion in any art, certainly pop music, are those casually or subtly delivered as is this gem of a line from this song: "bowel-shaking earthquakes of doubt and remorse assail him, impale him, with monster-truck force." The song is so clever that it could be about something other than heartbreak and I don't know it. But it is to me and that's all that matters. Winner.

"If You Label Me, You Negate Me." -Wayne Campbell

"The ADD adult is often a night owl... something in the ADD adult dreads going to bed and turning the light off. The fear is of being alone with one's urgent mind for even a few short minutes."

-Gabor Mate, Scattered


I believe my last post is time-stamped 4:10 a.m.

I am typing this at 2:36 a.m.

I am feeling a little somber, contemplative, not quite of the detached mood. I think the best writing usually happens with some degree of detachment like that. My best writing does, anyway.

I took 6 mg of melatonin and it almost knocked me out but then I caught a 2nd wind. Now here I am.

I feel a little bit of shame at having embraced the ADHD label. I think it is rooted in the idea that I am looking for some force beyond my control to which I can ascribe my failures in life. I mean, I feel shame over the idea that I ... I dunno. I am sensitive to the idea that I am trying to lift the burden of my major failures in life off my own shoulders and place it elsewhere. It wasn't me that brought home all those bad grades, never finished homework assignments, failed college, instigated an unplanned pregnancy... it was the one-armed man!

Until sometime in late 2007, I assumed all these failures were due to me being some kind of morally deficient. Lazy. At some point in late elementary school or early middle school, other, normal kids developed studying habits. Because I am lazy and stupid and irresponsible, I did not, and thus by my own deficiency doomed myself to a life of constant non-achievement.

Sometime in late 2007, I do not recall why, I decided to sit at my desk at work and avoid work by taking an online ADHD assessment. Goodness gracious, me, the assessment said, I may very likely have ADHD and I should talk to a professional. Multiple professionals have since endorsed the label.

So what? How am I permitted to redefine myself and my history? Why does it matter?

Was it no longer Lazy that plopped my teenage ass in front of a TV for hours on weekday evenings when homework was to be done, and/or other wholesome activities could've been engaged? Was it now ADHD?

This is, of course, the debate that anyone in the country who bothers to think about the subject for 5 seconds engages in when they ponder this label. Is it some sort of real disease/problem or an excuse? The question matters because the answer determines the amount of sympathy we choose allot to the victim. Victim of Lazy: no sympathy. Victim of ADHD: maybe sympathy.

Whether it's Lazy or ADHD, how much control did I have? I do not know, I can't know. It doesn't matter.

How much control can I get now? Like anyone, I just want as much as I can get. I guess I embraced the label because, emotionally, it gave me permission to forgive myself a little bit, and gave me a mindset that whatever my problem is, whatever label it has on it, I can now take responsibility for it and do something about it, rather than just walking around telling myself about my inherent deficiencies and just sitting back and witnessing more sad prophecies proceed self-fulfilled.

We Can't Make Out on Tiki Bob's Dance Floor Anymore, but, Can We Still Be Friends?

I've packaged this blog as "Maybe Travel Blog" and so I reckon I'll drop a post in that vein.

I traveled recently. Most recently: road-tripped with stops in Chicago, Toledo, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis. Pittsburgh and Cincy were the centerpieces of the trip.

I wanna talk about what happened in Indianapolis. Cause that was the only place on this trip that I made-out with someone.

I suppose I was feeling in full-on creeper mode by the time I passed through Indianapolis. I stopped in at a crowded bar. This was a Saturday night. I left Cincinnati around, I dunno, 7pm? I was in Indianapolis by, I dunno, 10:30pm? Saturday night, even in Indianapolis, apparently, is still young at that hour. I parked and found Kilroy's, a bar crowded with all the hip, pretty young things. I blended right in, apparently too well because no one talked to me. I wanted someone to talk to, but, what was I gonna do? Initiate conversation? Don't be ridiculous. The strategy of just showing up at bars had actually worked well in Pittsburgh just for finding some enjoyable conversation and sharing drinks with people. I even got a tequila shot purchased for me by strangers.

Nothing was happening at Kilroy's, though, so while there I started texting friends in the twin cities. It was a brilliant strategy. I may have been at this bar alone, but, look, people, I am texting. One doesn't text unless one has friends, right? Or one is eager to get further explanation about a hopefully-benign growth discovered in one's prostate gland. In that case, though, one probably doesn't want to text, having to wait impatiently for a possibly life-altering reply-text. One probably wants to step outside, make a damn phone call, and converse presently with one's medical advisor. Thus, people who noticed me, and surely no one cared anyway, would quickly deduce two things by my texting: 1. possesses friends, 2. healthy prostate gland.

Eventually I tired of Kilroy's. I took a short walk to Tiki Bob's, a dance club. I think it was on the same street.

If you've been in a dance club, you know the environment and the scene. Most important: everyone looks stupid. As you peruse the people in the dance club, at not one person do you stop and think to yourself "that person can explain to me the Higgs Boson." This is not to say everyone in there is stupid. Everyone just looks stupid. Everyone includes you. You can either dash back out the door, your $5 cover fee wasted and your hand bearing that stupid stamp, or you can go to the bar and accelerate the brain cell and net-worth exodus by drinking more. Or you can dance. I drank more. Eventually I danced.

Did I promise making-out in this story? At some point, a really attractive dark-haired girl started grinding on me. Now, I have had women grind on me before. This time I encountered a problem I do not recall in my past. This girl was by absolutely no standards a big girl, but... several times I literally almost fell backwards. I really think she might be onto some new form of self-defense where the female tricks her male counterpart into thinking she's about to dance with him, then grinds her ass into his thighs with such force that his balance is thrown off. I never fell backwards but frequently felt I was about to. She could've followed any of her grinds up with a good roundhouse kick, or simply pressed two fingers against my chest, and my ass would've met the dance floor with force.  If this was all a strategy to get my hands on her thighs, it worked. I had to maintain balance.

So, however clumsily, we danced. Mouths eventually exchanged words and other things. I learned her name, I learned that included in her party was another guy, but she thought I was better-looking. She learned that I was stopping on my way home to Minneapolis. She thought that was cool. I did too. We kidded that she could be my woman in Indianapolis, I her man in the twin cities.

Later in the night, she told me she was not a one-night stand. I told her I was not looking for one. She smiled and said it made me different from most of the guys in the dance club. This rise in her estimation of me was based on a misunderstanding, which I didn't bother to rectify. That I was not actively pursuing a one-night stand was based purely on logistical concerns. I had nothing in Indianapolis but a car (which, of course, in retrospect... I digress).

I got her email address. Don't ask me why. Feeling sufficiently sober, I left.

When I got home to the twin cities, I emailed her. I used her email address to look her up on Facebook and I found her. She was 22-years-old (I'm 31). I could look up what I wrote to her in my email, but I do not want to. It was nothing filthy. I tried to be friendly. I felt some obligation to clarify my status as a 31-year-old father of an 11-year-old. I figured this was no major thing. We weren't going to try to start up a long-distance romance, were we?

But let's be friends! Who doesn't want a new friend? Especially one that happens to be a cute member of the opposite sex. Nothing like adding to that collection.

Crickets... silence... tumbleweed. I threw in a Facebook friend-request to boot. Nothing.

Of course I can only speculate at the reasons for this. I suppose the fact that I am devoting this much energy to telling the story suggests I am hurt by it, but, I have felt very little actual hurt. I know hurt, this hasn't really hurt. In fact, that is probably why I feel so comfortable sharing the story. It's not hurt so much as... confusion? Curiosity? Just genuine curiosity as to how this whole experience plays into her consciousness? Does she think I am a full-on creep-a-zoid? I know based on my own experiences as someone who has not responded to people that it is almost never simply disdain or whatever for the other person that causes a no reply. Quite often, it's simply a matter of being busy and life. But she even ignored the Facebook friend request. Which is exactly what that was... a request to be friends. Denied. Sigh.

I suppose it just leaves me pondering on the great question (or... assertion) posed by the late Nora Ephron via the character Harry in When Harry Met Sally, for which she wrote the screenplay: "Men and women can never be friends."

I concur wholeheartedly with Mary Elizabeth Williams in this Salon.com article that:

even if you do want to nail each other or harbor romantic ideals, even if you wind up sleeping together, or you never do because, eww, gross, dude, you’re like my brother, you can be friends. And the perniciousness of this idea that you can’t has been one of the all-time worst things that ever happened to heteros.  

Maybe I don't agree that that idea is the worst thing to happen to heteros, and in fact I would also call it a safe bet it hasn't only effected heteros, but I definitely agree that sexual or romantic feelings between friends, gay/straight/whatever, need not impede a functioning friendship.

Which is funny, actually, because in Pittsburgh there was a gay man, coincidentally from Duluth, MN, who pretty overtly hit on me and I feel I very tactfully deflected his advances while still being very friendly. I had a very enjoyable conversation with him and his... friend?... and we exchanged email addresses and have since exchanged a few casual, friendly emails. I actually haven't responded to his last email to me a couple weeks ago. He also hasn't yet accepted my Facebook friend request.

Brief Update: Meditation

12+ minutes of what I will call more successful meditation this evening. Mark of success: I wasn't checking the clock every 40-120 seconds or so. In fact it got past 10 minutes quickly with barely one clock-check. My mind still wandered aplenty, but that is to be expected.

Thanks to Jackie, Mike, and Jen for some thoughtful comments on my last post about meditation. I enjoyed all the insights. What follows is just sorta some additional thoughts based on what they wrote.

My understanding of meditation based on my brief experiment with it over about a month or two in late 2007/early 2008 is that, indeed, as I believe Mike said, it is something to practice. That is to say, it is a skill that requires development. I think I read in at least one place that it often takes a year or more before you start to notice serious benefits to repeated practice. I don't know how true that is, but I hope I can stick with it long enough to find out.

I know one key to approaching meditation, at least when starting out, is zero expectations. That includes zero expectations of oneself. You shouldn't get frustrated if your mind wanders and you struggle to concentrate, as I believe was Jen's point. That's the mindset with which I approach it, too, and the only mindset I can approach it with if I want to progress.

Really in the beginning it is all about developing "consciousness" and "awareness" (don't ask me to clearly define the difference between those two concepts, there may not be one). The eventual goal being to develop the ability to distance yourself from your own thoughts and feelings, to become more of an observer of those thoughts/feelings rather than a captive participant engrossed in those thoughts/feelings. With that distance supposedly comes more ability to control where one's own thoughts/feelings go (a holy grail for someone with concentration problems).

There's a book called The Happiness Trap which introduces a similar concept called "de-fusion." De-fusion, in that book, basically involves the same thing described in the above paragraph: learning to observe your thoughts and how your mind is operating without necessarily letting your thoughts control your emotional state. That book is tied into a mode of therapy called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). That idea is a whole 'nother blog entry (in fact it's whole other books).

Jackie, I know almost nothing about Tai Chi. You piqued my interest.

Good Love Is Hard to Find, And Meditation Is Just Plain Hard

I just finished meditating for approximately 10 minutes. Dr. Gabor Mate, in his book Scattered, says meditation is good medicine for ADHD. I had a therapist recommend it to me once back in 2007 as well. I tried it for a brief period.

Meditation is antithetical to everything the ADHD person stands for. It is probably anti-thetical to a lot of things in modern American culture, what with the instant gratification and all.

It is just hard to sit still and not do something for ten damn minutes. It is hard for my brain to just keep going in one direction like that. It is hard for me to meditate like it is hard for me to write. Because in my mind I do not write coherently and linearly. Probably no one does, but I choose to believe I am particularly afflicted with that problem.

Like as I write this, I just want to write "Meditation! Ohhhhmmmm.... Gabor Mate... Scattered... says meditation good... I ... struggle... no likey... I sit on cushion, want to... don't want too... would rather not... really don't feel like... ummm, uhhh... scattered... tough to sit still like this... impulse striking... impulse... must adhere to the impulse... must... must... must reply to impulse... oh, wait, I am supposed to be meditating right now... concentrating... wait, not concentrating, just breathing... ohhhmmmm... Ocean. The word "Ocean" is my mantra. A mantra is not a motto. I think the two get confused. A mantra is not supposed to mean anything. It is just one word or phrase that you can focus on. When your mind wanders, you can just calmly bring it back to your mantra."

See there! The above paragraph is how my mind operates and how it eagerly wishes to operate. Impulsively, in the moment, flitting about and responding to whatever external or internal stimulus stimulates my brain.

I sit on that cushion and I just breathe, and barely a minute passes before I am stricken internally with this urge to get on the computer... or go get food, or re-arrange how I am sitting, or do push-ups, or... do something! Stimulate me! Get on the blog! Write babble!

Lack of structure is paradise to my brain. It just seeks out whatever immediate stimuli is available and hovers in its direction. Food, roller-coasters, TV, whatever's there. I am sure this is somewhat the case for everyone, but, again, the theme of this blog is that I have ADHD, I've had more than one medically-trained professional endorse this label for me, and so I choose to operate with the belief that I am somehow specially afflicted. This means that my brain will actively resist structure. Again, all brains do, but mine does actively. I tell myself "I should go for a walk," "I should practice my guitar," "I should read some of this book," and sometimes those things sound stimulating enough to my brain that I actually do those things, but often my brain says "NOOOOOOOOO!!! YOU DON'T HAVE TO!!! NOT NOW!!! IT IS NOT WHAT I WANT RIGHT NOW!!! IT SOUNDS UNSTIMULATING!!!! LET'S WATCH TV!!! TV!!!! TV!!!! INTERNET!!!! FACEBOOK!!!! NOW!!! NOW!!! NOW!!! DO IT NOW!!! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, MAN, YOU CAN!!! NO EXTERNAL FORCE IS FORCING YOU THROUGH THE RIGOROUS BOREDOM OF IMPROVING A MUSICAL SKILL OR GETTING EXERCISE JUST FUCKING GET IN FRONT OF THE COMPUTER AND VEDGE, BABY, BECAUSE YOU FUCKING CAN!!!! YEAAAAAAAAH!!!!! BASEBALLLLLLL!!!!!!  WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! CHECK ESPN.COM!!!! DO IT, DO IT, DO IT!!!!"

Of course I am not crazy, I do not hear loud voices in my head. My point is, as I sit there meditating, trying to do nothing, I feel a compulsion in my body as if I am indeed being entreatied by some external force to, for the love of god, do something! Something other than what I am doing!

I suppose my goal with meditation is to learn to progressively live with this feeling and fight it. Of course it all feels so pathetic and sad. As if this is very basic living with delayed gratification, something which we all must live. RIGHT THERE!! IT HAPPENED RIGHT THERE!! Right after I wrote that, I felt a compelling impulse to not continue with that thought. My mind wandered off for 20 seconds or more and I lost my train of thought. It was as if my thoughts were a fish in water and my brain just hurtled a lightning-fast spear at the fish and yanked it out: no more swimming in that direction! Go somewhere else!

What was my thought? Delayed gratification. We all have to learn to live with it. But.... but.... what is the rest of my thought?? Shame... pathetic and sad... I do live with delayed gratification. I don't just do any goddamn thing I want. If I did, I'd be even more broke than I am and I'd probably be trying to book a flight to China right now and being denied the purchase after attempting to pay for the impulse flight with one of five different credit cards.

No I am not doing that. But my brain responds to impulse. It has done that as I write this blog entry. The impulse is simply to seek some sort of immediate stimulation. And it seriously is an impulse over which I feel little total control.

I am a well-known night owl. I can stay up late until the most ungodly hours. I have had periods in my life where I stay up until 6 in the morning or later. Recent periods, in fact.

Nighttime there are less external stimulants. It is easier to concentrate. Easier but still not always accomplish-able. I just made up a word.

My left foot is shaking in that nervous-leg kinda way right now. I get that too. A lot.

I feel like the membranes in my nostrils are a little swollen. I am not entirely satisfied with how I breathe through my nose. I do not think I suffer from any allergies, and maybe I am just crazy. But I feel pretty strongly that air should pass more smoothly through my nose than it does. I have a mildly nasally voice, I think. Sometimes I actively try to conceal it when I am speaking.

So, yeah, meditation is difficult.

Glazed Eye Non-Reading

Advice that I've heard in some form over the years which I really like says that one of the worst limits you can put on yourself is a label about how you are or are not. "I am just not good at (this)," "I am incapable of (that)." Of course how debilitating or troubling this thing is depends on where you are applying it. If, say, you tell yourself "I am just not good at flying simply by flapping my arms" and you use this perceived limitation to decline an invitation to take a flying leap off of a really tall building, this perceived limitation is probably good business for you.

These perceptions are another thing when they go something along the lines of "I am just not good at math," "I am bad at dating," "I have no clue when it comes to job interviews." The problem is that these become self-fulfilling prophecies or designations. Of course it is not to say you can just start saying "I am Don Fucking Juan" and suddenly your love life will be transformed. It's just a matter of you developing these ideas about yourself and how those ideas operate on you. If you have reached the conclusion that you are bad at dating, you tend to cling to experiences that reinforce this idea of yourself and dismiss any evidence to the contrary.

I have long told myself that I am a terrible reader. I read slowly, don't finish books, other such self-criticism. Simultaneously I often feel like other people read more than I do, and they get something out of this that I have to miss in my life because I am a terrible reader.

Now I didn't just invent this perceived characteristic for fun. It's based on a rich history of experiences such as beginning books and not finishing them, and trying to read things because something tells me I "should," and finding myself glazing over the words without really processing what I am reading, my mind elsewhere.

That particular experience of glazed-eye non-reading is something I know happens to almost everyone. Without conducting any scientific research, I concluded that the experience is common enough to me, and hinders my ability to, say, learn things, that I sought and received my ADHD diagnosis. This is definitely not the only such experience that led me to seek the diagnosis, but certainly a contributor. Everyone experiences that kinds of things that characterize ADHD, ADHD-diagnoses are doled on when such characteristics hinder one's ability to function satisfactorily in some important areas of life (relationships, work, school).

So, anyway, I started reading The Brothers Karamazov, with some vague notion that it would be a way of challenging my self-appointed label of "bad reader," just for the fun of trying something that internally I tell myself is one of those things that other people do, not me, because I am somehow deficient in this area of life.

The book is 1,042 pages long. After about a month, I am on page 360. That averages to something like 11 pages per day. I don't know that I can really use this as a basis to challenge my label of "bad reader," but I am at least hoping to challenge my notion of "person who does not finish books unless they are Harry Potter books."

I am prompted to write about it now because I am getting to a point at which I often arrive when I decide to read a book: the point at which I stop reading it. That it point is rarely also the point at which I have read the whole thing.

I had set a goal of reading 10-pages per day and that was the kind of goal that kept me reading. In the last week or so I've struggled to keep up with even that goal. I was spending a week with my daughter and family, though, and while I could've easily kept going, I didn't, so what, my routine was off, no big deal. Now I am ready to get back at it. But I find that I am suddenly now really struggling with the glazed-eye non-reading.

This a problem endemic to my existence, a problem which I've decided to co-opt the ADHD label to help describe: my mind simply refusing to be where I am trying to tell it to go. Here, mind, read and absorb the information in this here Brothers Karamazov book, a titanic literary achievement which you are now going to read so that you can be a person who reads titanic literary achievements. I am generally enjoying the story. But... my mind is just on other things. The result is I can sit there for 20 minutes affecting the look of someone reading The Brothers Karamazov, while the truth is I am someone sitting and looking at the pages inside The Brothers Karamazov while pondering my love life, thinking about what I am going to do the next day, or otherwise not reading The Brothers Karamazov.

Maybe The Brothers Karamzov is not such a big deal. But what about when it is training material for a job, a lecture for a class, a phone conversation at work with a client, reviewing case notes for a case on which I am supposed to be working, participating in an important meeting? I can try to tell myself where my mind needs to be, but even the act of telling myself this is a piece of stimuli that sets my brain off on other thoughts. "Here I go again, trailing off... gosh, I can't help it, I just feel the urge to go the gym right now, I feel like I've been sedentary for too long... oh, wait, shit, what did the prof. just say? He's talking about this, now, was this related to... wait, how is it related to that? Can I interrupt and ask him to repeat what he just said? But, wait, what did he just say... how can I ask a question without it basically being some rambling, long-winded form of asking "duhhh, what?"

A mind in open revolt is often useless to wrestle. As far as struggling against the idea of myself as a non-reader, it is silly for me to attach high stakes to the finishing of one simple book, but I am eager to see myself finish The Brothers Karamazov. My recent struggle with reading it got my mind simply on the struggle of reading itself, so instead of spending time reading, here I am writing a long blog entry that will interest practically no one. Maybe now that I've satisfied my mind's urge to get this shit out, I can go back to reading? I don't know. I guess the point is that I will try not to get too flustered if I can't seem to sit down and read this thing at one time. If I can only churn out 3 pages of reading in one sitting, maybe I can try to sit down through 3 simple pages at another point in the day, then at another point in the day, 4 pages. I refuse to gloss over this, if I didn't TRULY read a page, I will go back and read it again until I am satisfied that I've absorbed enough of the story.

Anyway... I feel like doing some push-ups.

Wait, What's An Ester? Or... Free Desk. Cost: $50?

I am trying to work on a paper for which I should write about 1500 words and I have 945 written, all 945 written over two days. It is very reasonable to expect I can churn out another 600 words today and tomorrow. The paper is due at 5pm tomorrow. But I am anxious about starting. I am avoiding starting. Starting, I mean, to write those last 600 words. In my mind, what I've come up with is ... (brain trailing off here... coming back)... what I've come up with is... do I have a mental stutter?... in my mind the 945 words up with which I've come (never end a sentence with a ... with a... a... ummm, ... King's Speech... stammer... wow, in my brain I have a stammer...).... in my mind the 945 words up with which (never end a sentence with a preposition, that's it)... the 945 words up with which I've come are (is?) the extent to which I can write about the subject without doing further reading...

So, I am avoiding doing the remaining 600 words because I suspect (worry?) that it will take me very long to come up with them. 600 words. I could do 30 words/hour. That's one sentence per hour, and I'd be done by 5pm tomorrow, easily. But... they can't just be 30 plain words, ordinary thoughts in my head, I need to come up with thirty GOOD words, words that have substance and will earn me an A.

To come up with 30 GOOD words... I would need to re-read things I should've already read. And reading, god, that's a chore. Read 3 pages, if I'm lucky, before my mind trails off completely onto something else... go back, read the 3rd of those 3 pages again... what the hell have I read? Can I summarize what I've just read in my mind? If I can't... did I read it at all?

- - - - - - -

So why is this blog entry titled "what's an ester?" Because the above describes... well, roughly depicts, my thought process in trying to accomplish something I wanted to accomplish... I could not get it started... I still have not gotten it started... the above was my thought process on trying to get the 1500 word essay completed.

Oh, I neglected to mention, I am going to a baseball game tonight. It starts at 7pm. It's 9am. It was well before 9am when I was encountering the mental roadblock I described above. 10 hours. OK, well, an hour of transport time to the game, 6pm... 9 hours... 9 hours I'd have to write those 600 words. Less than 100 words an hour. That seems accomplishable. But, again, they have to be 100 GOOD words. Not just whatever pedestrian thought is in my head. They gotta be good.

OK, so, my point: my mind instead got onto another thing I had to do... a 200-page informal writing assignment. I started reflecting on that. It was for my renewable energy class, "what did I learn in my renewable energy class" is the assignment. I started thinking about that. I got 170 words written fairly easily. Then I wanted to add the thought "I learned the word 'ester'." Which, really, I did. I think I've encountered it in the past, but never known what it means. I thought to myself "I can't just say, in this reflection, that I learned the word. If I were grading this, that would be unsatisfactory... so... I need to show that I not only learned the word, but that I actually know what it means. Uhhh... I don't know what it means. It's some kinda sciencey combiney thing... chemical reactions... it... uhhh... does... chemical reactions..." gosh, I really don't know what an ester is. Well, might as well take this opportunity to learn! To Wikipedia with me....

Esters are chemical compounds derived by reacting an oxoacid with a hydroxyl compound such as an alcohol or phenol.

"What the hell does that mean???" OK... break it down... "oxoacid"... an acid that contains an alcohol... hydroxyl... 

HYDROXYL: A hydroxyl is a chemical functional group containing an oxygen atom connected by a covalent bond to a hydrogen atom

"A "chemical functional group"???? Wait, what is a covalent bond again?? I learned that recently, but now I've forgotten it... ...OK, wait a minute... so what the hell is an ester again?"

All this confusion over anxiety about whether or not it is OK for me to put "I learned the term 'ester'." All that over 5 words in a 200-word reflection that is not a significant part of my grade in that class. And all that to avoid focusing on 600 words for the 1500-word paper.

And through all this, I still work on the floor of my bedroom. My computer is not propped up on a desk. So in trying to decide whether or not to put 5 words on an insignificant assignment, my mind then wandered to how to accomplish acquiring a desk...

Go buy one? Simple, resolute. But a good one would cost.... $70 cheap at Target. Plus the $15 or so to reserve and use an hourcar. Maybe instead I call Mom and borrow her vehicle. But... for how long do I use it? What about all that stuff in my storage space? I should use Mom's vehicle to also get stuff out of storage. What will fit? Where will I put it? Will my room get too crowded? I should organize my room (keep in mind, that 1500-page paper is not getting any more written in all this time)... 

Craigslist, I could get a free desk off Craigslist. But I looked at such desks. They're so big. Mom's vehicle may not be sufficient to go get one. I'd have to rent a truck. Gosh, that would cost money. Might as well just go buy the cheap desk at Target. 

But do I REALLY need a desk? Can I persist with the computer on the floor as it is right now? Well, it's not very comfortable.

This blog entry itself is part of the whole story. It's over 1000 words and I composed it in about 20 minutes. 

It should also be noted that I also originally posted it in my blog devoted specifically to sports. That was a mistake which I will correct now.

Morning in Florence

Made it to my 7:15 train out of Rome, arrived on time in Florence, got to my hotel before 9:30, they said my room wouldn't be ready until noon, I dropped my big bag with them and set out walking along the river, crossed the river, walked up an elevation that had to be at least 1/4th mile above where I started, that's my conservative guesstimate, wouldn't be surprised if it were 1/2-mile or more, found a stunning scenic overlook of Florence, took photos, found a small gift that I thought Rebecca would like and bought it, wandered around and found a walk-through rose garden designed by some recently-deceased artist, really adorable and only about 4 other people were wandering through, saw and wandered up an enormous staircase up to a quaint Franciscan church, walked in and relaxed in the peace and quiet, only like 5 other people in the church, chilled out, walked out and back down the huge staircase, down near the bank of a river through some rather polished upscale but still old looking neighborhood that was marked a UNESCO World Heritage Site, wandered through that, on down to this famous bridge, I forget the name of the bridge, but it was teeming with people and had rows of elegant jewelry shops displaying jewelry of gold, diamonds, emeralds, pretty sure I saw some sapphire, wished I had the kind of money it'd require to buy some of the jewelry for my deserving fiance but they cost more than the total cost of my lodging on this whole trip, wandered by the Uffizi museum and galleria di academia, which house David among other things (already reserved my ticket there tomorrow), walked to the piazza outside them which was full of beautiful sculptures including a replica of David which I think has at least some history and fame to itself, took lots of pics of all this using dying batteries...

then walked back to my hotel arriving shortly after noon where my room was ready and waiting and where I now am. all completely spontaneous, this was not a walk I had planned at any time, just a time-killing walk with only the aid of a crude map.

That was just my f*ing morning!!!