Living on the Rhythm of an Oven Timer

The personal coach lady emailed me over all of these things like an intentions journal, a time log, but there's already enough paper, I don't need more of it. So I leave a message to tell her I want to call off the appointment, and put it off until the new year.

On the other hand I wish I were rich and famous and could afford to wholly experiment with all of the remedies out there, because I live life as if I'm an Octopus on roller skates. I'm here, there and everywhere. I wing things. I wing work, wing the way I write, I wing the grocery shopping, the ingredients in a recipe (thus the half-baked pies, and the time I mixed up collard greens for romaine lettuce). Sometimes winging it works, but much of the time it backfires and makes me look like a spacey valley girl. Case in point was going out and buying my very first set of real bed sheets.

I figured that my bed was a twin bed simply because there are two pieces that match together and then bought new sheets for a twin bed, turns out the sheet with the elastic corners don't even stretch to the other end of the bed.

I end up hauling the linens to Jane's husband's memorial service today, with my funeral mates wondering what is going on. Why is this woman carrying a big bag of linens to a Jewish wake? I didn't care what they thought, by the time I arrived at the funeral parlor on the upper west side I was exhausted. I had trekked across Central Park my palms throbbing and my feet throbbing. When I'm in a sunny mood I joke that I'm a bag lady, but I wish I lived a simpler and more stress-free life.

I went back to the linen store and told them that the sheets didn't fit the bed, and that there' were spots on the sheets, making myself feel less guilty of being clueless. The store woman pointed me to a tall cute black kid who asks me okay what kind of size bed do you have? I don't know I say. Twin, full, queen, king? What's 'full' I ask, what's `queen' I ask? Since he can't explain the measurements, and nor can I, I point to a bed on display. It's like that I say only a little smaller. So it's a queen, he says? I guess I say. Do you know how many thread counts you want? He asks. Thread what? I ask, what is that?

The kid looks a little amused but that's one of the perks of ADD, people think I am joking half the time when it fact I truly am clueless. They think I am being silly when I say I don't know how big the bed is. Well you should have a good idea since we're not doing a return again, the kid said. The botched bed linens, the way I take care of Marilyn the Betta fish, are all signs of winging it.

Four days ago the damn fish started to show signs of fin rot, with the Petco sales kid tsk tsking me and saying the disease is a sign of "poor hygiene, poor water quality." Good thing there's no animal control for Betta fish. So I bought new gravel, fish meds, premium food, with the hopes that Marilyn survives. He seems kind of hearty since he likes to snap at me and jump like a rabid dog whenever I stick my fingers near the bowl.

I just don't understand why my plants and fish don't thrive, inevitably there's something wrong with them. The sister says I should be nice to myself, if the Betta dies don't be so hard on myself, fish don't live very long anyway. However, I jokingly tell a friend who has a new baby that I'm not sure how well I'd do with a baby since I can't even handle a fish. ADD is such a vicious cycle.

Outside the shoe-box sized room I'm sub-renting, it is all gray sky and cool air, and pharmacies filled with Halloween trinkets. I walked through Central Park today though observing young couples, supermodel-like couples, dowdy moms, Jewish moms, older couples, and wondered how did they meet, how did they hook up? I envy the newly married cousins, I envy Jane, she and Herb were true soul mates even though he's gone now. I've never met a couple so meant for each other and they make each other laugh all of the time. I would give anything for that. I would give anything to find someone I loved and admired and vice versa and I just haven't found that yet. Is it possible for someone with ADD to find love? There lies the million dollar question. Given that I have a hard time keeping track of conversations and the bad habit of winging things, will I ever walk down any aisle other than a supermarket aisle?