No real point to this post, I guess, but I did want to mention that I spend an inordinate amount of time looking at the sky. Tonight it is completely majestic, with all sorts of red and orange hues with the setting sun peeking through the clouds.
My friend Danielle who has ADD and OCD says that my behavior is a clear sign of ADD. I don’t know about that, but I do have anxiety and anger issues, and I know that when I am in public I look at the sky a lot to just zone out, tune everyone out, and gain some mental privacy. She was the first person to point out to me how often I do it, but I do it all the time- I’ll just get quiet, turn off all the internal noise, and look up.
I am also an expert at ignoring people. Remember how when you were a kid and dad was reading the newspaper, and you would say “Dad, dad, dad, dad DAD DAD DAD DAD DAD” and he was able to ignore you until the very end? That is how I am with most people. I guess maybe it is a defense mechanism, although mom just calls it “selective listening.” I know I mentioned the other night that I am a good listener, but that is only when I want to be or if someone is in distress. Otherwise, I am a champion at hearing what I want to hear. I mean, I am fair. I’ll give you a couple seconds to interest me, otherwise I lose interest.
Is that weird, or do you all do the same?
Also, going to go below freezing in the tri-state area of WV, OH, and western PA, so cover your plants or bring them in. I did not put my garden in yet because I had a hunch this was going to happen.
Corner Stone
You are an awful, awful person.
Redshirt
I miss smoking only for the forced time outdoors, looking up at the sky.
I ain’t goin’ out in that shit when it’s -14 now, no sir.
Jerzy Russian
I also spend a great deal of time looking at the sky.
mb
I usually disengage by looking down. Whatever works, I guess. I’d like to know why some people look up at the ceiling. Lindsey Graham does it all the time when he’s interviewed on TV. I think it’s because his entire life is a lie and a fraud and he can’t meet anyone’s eyes when he talks to them. Is that too harsh? Nah, nothing’s too harsh about that douche.
What an absolute piece of shit.
Nicole
A friend of mine sent photos of her wedding. In virtually every photo of me, I had a very candid, awkward expression on my face. Except one, where I leaned my head on my hand, staring intently at an acquaintance as she spoke. My best friend commented how nice I looked in the photo. I sheepishly had to tell her that was my “I’m looking like I’m listening to you, but I’m really not” expression.
We all do it. I grew up spending holidays with a large extended family, but my grandparents had an enormous house, so there was always somewhere to hide to decompress. I find holidays much more stressful now than as a child, because my parents don’t have the same kind of space and there’s nowhere to go to get away from the NOISENOISENOISE.
Suffern ACE
Not much sky here. So I use an app to view the skies of other places.
Baud
I started reading this post, but then I got distracted. I’m sure it’s very good.
Poopyman
As an astronomer I have to say that there is no amount of time looking at the sky that can be called “inordinate”. Except for the fact that the great majority of people stumble through their lives never noticing the world around them. Something touched on by the “This is Water” virally overplayed speech, but it was also something I was taught at an early age; just observe what’s going on. It requires some mental muscle memory, but rewarding far beyond the effort required.
But the tuning out, yeah, that’s weird.
Poopyman
@Redshirt: You ever notice how the winter sky gets a creamy tan color to the clouds as the afternoon gets on? I love that.
Calming Influence
Get the fuck out. You?!?
Calming Influence
Also Cole, what color is the sky in your world?
Bruce Baugh
John, I know that you at least sometimes read Jim Henley, the formerly libertarian founder of Unqualified Offerings. He doesn’t post there much these days, but he’s written some about the experience of being diagnosed with adult-onset ADD and being treated for it. It’s done him a world of good in complex and sometimes subtle ways. Might be worth checking out his account and even pinging him in e-mail for more (and if you do, please feel free to say that I encouraged it).
John Cole
@Calming Influence: I guess that was a kind of a Dewey Oxberger moment.
dewzke
John Cole, you are an interesting person. Very odd, yet cool. Do not change. Now get the fuck off of my lawn! Nah, come in and have a beer.
Felonius Monk
Better to be looking up at the sky than up at the roots of the lawn — if you get my drift.
Higgs Boson's Mate
John Cole, don’t do what I did; spend years avoiding professional help because meds or therapy might ruin your finely tuned mind. The luster was taken off of decades because I avoided seeking help for depression and PTSD.
SatanicPanic
Like the new font. And we can embed videos now? Rad! But don’t tell Little Boots
Comrade Jake
A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.
Baud
@SatanicPanic:
I think it’s a front pager privilege.
VodkaGoGo
I spent the day with my parents, siblings and all of their filthy, screaming kids so yes, I can completely understand why you would want to occasionally tune people out. That’s pretty much how I spend all of my holidays and the number one reason I grew up to be sports fan. GO WINGS!
Comrade Jake
I remember being able to embed videos here at BJ a couple of years ago. And then Cole got pissed off, and the server was nuked from orbit, just to be sure.
dopealope
I love the new site design. Seriously.
Calming Influence
+1 with an ice cold Tito’s vodka. Ms. Influence and I did the Austin City Limits Music Festival last summer and splurged for the VIP tickets. In the VIP grove they had vast quantities of amazing food, beer, and wine, all free. But the line to the Tito’s vodka stand was like you’d see at a keg party, from 10am to 11pm, three days on a row. they must have given away enough vodka to fill a swimming pool, and it is soooooooo goooooood.
In your FACE, suckers!
maurinsky
If I’m reading and someone is trying to talk to me, it takes me a while to notice that someone is talking, let alone that they are trying to talk to me. And I try to see the sun rise and the sun set every day.
Calming Influence
@John Cole: Well played.
Just Some Fuckhead
I’d say you were bound to cycle through pensive on your emotional roller coaster. Welcome back down, John.
Comrade Jake
Am at the Chicago airport and my flight is delayed due to “Air Traffic Control”. I’m trying to see if I can ID a Republican to punch in the face, but then I remembered that both sides do it.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Poopyman: I went to the grocery store this afternoon, as soon as I pulled up I noticed that the entire staff of the store was in the parking lot, I asked what was up and they told me about a minor gas leak. While I was waiting in the parking lot for the fire dept to give the all clear dozens of people pulled up to the store and (talking on their cellphones)walked to the door and couldn’t figure out why the store was closed despite the fact that THE ENTIRE STAFF OF THE STORE WAS STANDING IN THE PARKING LOT. People are fucking clueless.
Redshirt
@Poopyman: I’ve still got shell shock from this past winter. All I see, in memory, is a slate grey, otherwise, darkness. And a cold wind howling.
Tonight’s sunset was gorgeous. I got end of day rainbow!
Corner Stone
@Comrade Jake: What?
cathyx
Tuning people out? You sound like the typical man.
Corner Stone
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
I see it both ways. What’s your thinking? Giving up flashes of insight and brilliance for steady reportage day after day.
Comrade Jake
@Corner Stone: yeah Paul Simon is probably deaf.
Calming Influence
@Comrade Jake: Paul Simon’s DEAD?!?
chris
John
My brother is OCD (which serves him well, treated, in his work as a scientist).
But I came to suspect ADHD for me, only now, in my 40s, after dismissing it for years as for the jittery kids, but then reading more detail about it.
FOr your reference, read this man’s books to learn more.
http://www.drhallowell.com
Driven to Distraction / Delivered from Distraction are worth reading
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Corner Stone:
Good question. You wouldn’t want most of my insights during that time. What happened for me is that I’m more able to recognize insights and inspiration because Radio KFUK isn’t constantly blaring away in the background.
Comrade Jake
OT: how is it that Anthony Bourdain doesn’t weigh 300 pounds? Jesus all that cat does is eat!
Just Some Fuckhead
@Calming Influence: lolz
Just Some Fuckhead
@Comrade Jake: He’s an ectomorph.
Corner Stone
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Hmmm. Ok.
I guess it comes to us all in different ways.
The brilliance and insight, I mean.
Or maybe that’s just me.
RobertDSC-iPhone 4
Red sky at night, Sailor’s delight.
Red sky at morning, Sailor take warning.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: @Higgs Boson’s Mate: You guys get brilliance and insight? I’m still waiting on mine.
Maude
We have a frost warning.
John could write excellent novels.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@FlipYrWhig:
Insight, occasionally. The only way I’ll achieve brilliance is if someone chrome plates me and stands me out in the noonday sun.
Maude
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
You have brilliance, you don’t see it. It comes out in your comments. No, I’m not being snarky.
Mnemosyne
Had leftover baby backs from this local place for dinner. I think I almost prefer cold day-old ribs to fresh ones.
Operation Bookcase Move is mostly complete. I’m trying to decide if I want to start assembling the new cabinet tonight or wait until tomorrow.
Anne Laurie
Yep, anger/anxiety issues are classic co-morbidity for undiagnosed ADHD. (Second the Driven to Distraction recommendation!)
So’s ‘doing really well in the military’, where the sensory bombardment of too many choices is kept to a minimum, hyperfocus on select minutiae is rewarded, and there are frequent breaks for physical activity.
Also too, family history of addiction issues, aka ‘self-medication’. Extra points for Crohn’s disease or colitis, gut issues also related to impaired serotonin uptake. (One of many reasons I swear Dubya Bush is ADHD is his brother Marvin’s colitis, which got him a pass from the family crime business.)
You’ve got insurance, Cole, you should really get yourself tested. As Kurt Vonnegut said about a related diagnosis late in his career, “I always believed I was righteously outraged at the idiocy of the universe; it just never occured to me that I was so outraged exactly every 28 days.”
JWL
A Far Side Cartoon: A family is staring up at an armada of flying saucers hovering in the night sky above their house. Inside the saucers are dogs looking down at them. The family’s dog is alongside them, also staring at the saucers, when it suddenly speaks up in plain English to say: “At last they’ve returned”.
belieber
What was your first clue Cole?
Let me give you a hint…”DRONEZZZZZ suck…Greewald is awesome…Fat Bastard Christie is my hero…hey guess what my dog shit in my bed…I do love her so…hey were is my fat piece of shit cat which reminds me buy my calendar…listening to freebird and getting shit faced…thinking about the wonder years…ie my fraternity….Obamas sucks…no wait…I never said that…it was that Republican voice that has never left my head…but the drugs keeps the volume down”
Kris Collins
I was diagnosed with ADD about 15 years ago when in my 40s shortly after my then 6 yr old daughter was diagnosed (my husband noticed the similarities in our behaviors and I went from there.) As a lawyer, I am an obsessive researcher and after living with and studying ADD for all these years, with all respect to your friend, I have never heard of staring at the sky (or anything similar) being a symptom, let alone a clear sign, of ADD. I don’t know everything, just giving another point of view.
moderateindy
The, I give you a little bit of time to interest me part……………..good way to stay away from being bored, better way to keep from learning stuff. Even the dumbest most boring people can teach you things. Even conservatives can teach you stuff, even if it’s just how many ways they can be hateful, and stupid.
hilzoy
@Anne Laurie: What Anne Laurie said.
Kris Collins
Your accidents though? That’s another story. I spent most of my life thinking that all my broken bones and bruises were just the result of my being an unathletic klutz. Then I was diagnosed and.realized that when I did things like trip down the stairs and go flying headlong into the TV, it was because my ADD brain was racing ahead of my non- ADD body. That may be the most idiotic accident, but I have many others. As do you. Something to think about.
Linnaeus
Another ADD-er here, although it took a while for me to catch on because I dealt with a mental health practitioner who didn’t seem to take it seriously as a possibility.
Yatsuno
@belieber: Feel better Durf? Herp.
mclaren
Did you say something, Cole?
Kris Collins
Oh, yeah, depression and migraines can be related to ADD, too. And many, many ADDers have zero physical hyperactivity, with us it’s all in our heads, so to speak. Example: my inability to get all my thoughts on this topic expressed in on damn comment.
Kris Collins
Oh, yeah, depression and migraines can be related to ADD, too. And many, many ADDers have zero physical hyperactivity, with us it’s all in our heads, so to speak. Example: my inability to get all my thoughts on this topic expressed in one damn comment.
NotMax
Listen carefully. The golden secret is… is — SQUIRREL!
Kris Collins
Oh, crap, double posting, another example of brain racing ahead of everything.
Gopher2b
@mb:
I read somewhere once that people look up when they’re trying to remember something (like watching a brain movie) and look down when they’re lying.
Maybe he’s just trying to remember his lies so they’re consistent.
Mnemosyne
@Kris Collins:
I haven’t heard anything like that, either, and I have also done a whole lot of research since I was diagnosed as an adult. Maybe his friend meant that it was a symptom of OCD but he wasn’t paying attention?
Ella in New Mexico
I like to zone out, too. I’ve been told I have ADD, Fibromyalgia, and that I’m an Adult Child of an Alcoholic, none of which are true.
Why is is that everybody with a diagnosis thinks they see it in everybody else?
Harold Samson
Everything anyone does that’s “not quite right” is due to ADD, or some other hand waving DSM entry that provides a good excuse to sell cheap meds at a high price.
Study the clinical research on ADD/ADHD. There’s literally nothing there but a lot of confirmation bias.