She had not done the best parking job. She works in a high rise building in the downtown area of Chicago. The garage where she parks is only ever around half full. She woke up late and was hustling to work. By the time she made it to the parking garage she was flustered. She parked the car in a half-assed manner and ran to the elevator. Because of all the empty space she didn’t think twice about it.

When she left work later that day she found a note attached to her windshield. It read:

Dear Shithead – Learn how to park your car better or the next time I’m going to hit your door even harder. I don’t give a shit because this is a company car.

I could write a 2000-word essay on what’s amazing about that letter. I’ll skip ahead and tell you what she did. She took a photo of the license plate and sent it to her brother, a police officer. He’ll run the plate and tell her to whom the car is registered. She’ll then call the company and ask which employee drives XYZ car. Then, she’ll call his boss (has to be a him), and send over the letter. He’ll be fired.

It got me to think about my own inability to hold it together at times. How I can go from sane to crazy in a matter of seconds should the right stimulus present itself.

My psychiatrist put me on a drug a few years ago. I can’t tell you what neurotransmitters it affects, but the way it was explained to me is this – the medicine allows me a few seconds of rational thought before I go into fight or flight. In other words, it provides sanity when I most need it.

I have one of those brains that flips out at the drop of a hat. If you drop and break a plate I’ll jump two feet in the air. I’ll also let out a scream. I’m high-strung and always have been. When I was younger it was named “sensitive” by adults. The kids at school would call it a “spaz.” Thankfully I learned how to internalize my freakouts and keep them hidden from the world. Nobody wants to be the class spaz.

I’m to a point now where I wonder how much of the behaviors I’d like to change are medical vs. psychological. I mean, if someone drops a plate, I don’t have much choice other than to freak out. It’s automatic. Wake me up in the middle of the night and I’ll begin yelling at you before I’m even conscious. With this med, however, I have more control.

I’m also in a therapist’s office once a week to work on my issues. The struggle for me is knowing what I have the ability to change and what just doesn’t work right with my physiology. Is the sadness I feel just a normal reaction to life or because my dopaminergic receptors don’t have the right uptake process? It’s confusing.

So, what do I work on and what do I surrender to meds? The science isn’t yet perfected on figuring out mental health.

What seems to be a true north for me are feelings. To fully feel a tough emotion when it comes up, and learning to trust that it will lead somewhere useful. As a guy, however, I was not taught to indulge in my sadness, fear, anger, or shame. Even after years of practice the process is new to me.

However, I’ve never left a nasty note on someone’s car and dented their door. I’m not far off the charts, thank God.

So for me the formula seems to be something like this:

acceptance of how I currently am  + meds for how I currently am + therapy for how I’d like to be + feeling tough stuff

Or maybe I should just keep freaking out and writing about it. It does make for great stories. Like how, to soothe myself today, I bought a huge amount of beef jerky and stunk up my office gnawing on the worst parts of a cow. Then I stunk up my office in a whole other way. It was awesome.

photo credit: Frau Shizzle via photopin cc

I wasn’t that sad sack sitting at a table for two watching a candle melt down and consistently asking for water refills waiting for my date not to arrive.

In the afternoon my date sent me a text message, “Something came up – can’t make it tonight. So sorry.” I replied with, “No problem. If you want to reschedule, let me know.” She wrote back, “Of course!”

She will not want to reschedule. I’ve been dating online long enough to understand text-speak. This was a first date and I’m still surprised it didn’t happen. We had an amazing conversation on the phone and had been joking around with each other all week on text message. She had even started to refer to me as “buttface” which I thought was funny. We were busting balls which is always a good sign. Playful stuff.

Now, I’m about to reveal something here – something that you’re going to cringe at. You’re not going to like this next bit. I’m going to tell you why I believe she canceled the date. But it will sound way worse reading it than if I had told you in person. Trust me.

I’m kind of a spaz on the phone. If you listen to my podcast or watch our oSex videos you can see that I get all fired up about stuff, but in a fun way. I’m not a psycho, but I do express excitement. I can’t help it.

Here’s the story – I had been dating this lovely woman for a month or so and we recently separated. My birthday was this past week, and my parents are coming up from Peoria today to take me to a show and birthday dinner. Originally I had invited this woman, but since our breakup, obviously I now had a vacancy.

As a total joke on the phone with this new woman earlier this week, I said…

You know what would be totally crazy but also hilarious?  Well, we have a date on Friday, right? See my parents come in on Saturday. I was supposed to bring someone but she isn’t going to make it. We have this extra ticket for a dance show.

Okay…

Let’s say we get on well on date one on Friday. It would be amazing and insane, but maybe I’ll bring you out with my parents for date number two. Would that be funny? I mean, we have the ticket and everything, and I know how it sounds. It’s lunacy. But it would make for a great story. I met this guy’s parents on the second date.

(pauses for a second) You know, I’m actually really open minded to that sort of thing. It would be funny. But what if you don’t like me on date one?

Then you’re not getting invited to the Saturday event, AND you’re paying for the dinner on date one.

Well, let’s just focus on date one first! Remember, you might not even like me!

Oh, I know. It’s an outrageous thought, and I would totally understand you not wanting to do it. But we’ll see how date number one goes.

Ha – yes, can’t wait to meet you.

–Fin–

Here’s my guess. Over the next few days she let that marinate and it didn’t sit well. The context of me joking around fell away and she probably went, “Did that psychopath really invite me to meet his family on day two?” When the conversation was actually happening, she was into it. She was laughing and agreed it would be a fun thing. But nobody wants to meet someone’s parents on date two. It’s nuts. I understand. And even though I thought it was a funny idea, I should have kept it to myself. I’m sure it scared her off. So she canceled.

We were supposed to have a fun BBQ dinner that evening. Ironically, my oSex co-host Karen invited me out to dinner with her parents who were in town and also having BBQ. So I got to eat my BBQ dinner, didn’t have to pay for my date, and got to hang out with someone’s parents who I hadn’t ever met.

So, if you want to date me, be prepared for my insane didn’t-think-that-through outbursts on the first few phone calls. I should probably reign it in a bit, yes? Yes. Ha!

I had to do it.

The past four years I  hadn’t  touched any caffeine. Well, let me back up. Basically I didn’t drink any caffeine until I was thirty-one years old. Then I discovered energy drinks and the amazing high you get from them. Since I don’t drink or use drugs the highs I experience are limited. I can’t butt bong a beer, huff hobby glue, or pack bong loads. I can eat too much pizza and drink caffeine. That’s it for me.

At the time of my caffeine addiction my wife noticed that I had virtually no feelings except “looking intense.” I would want to wax philosophic about intellectual subjects, but could not muster up even the littlest amount of compassion or empathy. In short I was an emotional flatline. Oh, and I got in a lot of fights with her when I was jacked up. That’s no good, either.

So, I looked inside, realized I was a caffeine addict and quit.

Until one of the guys in the office introduced me to Jewish Coca Cola. It was during Passover and they’re not supposed to drink corn syrup, I think. Only real sugar. So, since I hadn’t had a Coke in over four years I decided to take a swig. Surely this wouldn’t become a problem…

Cut to two months later, me surrounded by empty energy drink cans in a daze passed out on the floor next to my bed.

Well, this isn’t entirely true as I always throw away trash as soon as I am finished. I’m not a monster – but I do love their drinks. Get it? Good one, D.J.!

There’s an expression that alcoholics and addicts say that is, “While you’re staying sober your addiction is outside doing pushups.” Meaning that the addiction never goes away and actually only gets stronger. That’s why abstinence is so important. Your addiction grows even though you’re not indulging.

I can state that this is entirely true for me. While I’ve never fallen off the wagon with alcohol, when I launched into energy drinks I started at three a day. That’s a shitload of B vitamins, ginseng, whatever L-carnitine is, and of course, caffeine. I paired back to two pretty quickly, as I had a hard time falling asleep. But as soon as 9am rolled around the carnival started again.

I have to admit that I was productive as hell at work. Stuff got done that was never supposed to even see the light of day. Plus, I was gacked to the nines throughout the entire workday.

After a few weeks, the buzz all but wore off. I guess my body adjusted and I no longer got the “high” I desired. Now I just needed it to wake up in the morning. This was bad, as I never needed stimulants before to get going. I’m already kind of a spaz as it is.

This past weekend, my old friend Lisa was flying in to stay with me. Lisa cares about me more than just about anyone and would have beat me over the head with a wooden spatula if she knew just how much I was drinking caffeine. She’s one of those  friends. I had three choices:

1. Come clean about my caffeine abuse.
2. Hide it by stashing cans in my bedroom.
3. Go cold turkey.

Option three made the most sense. The day after she arrived I woke up with acid in my mouth. That bile stomach stuff. I raced to the bathroom and vomited up some spinach from the night before. Now, it’s possible I ate something bad the previous dinner, but I believe it was withdrawal symptoms. My headache was so severe it lasted two days. I took at least 30 ibuprofen over that time, way more then recommended. Today, I took three, count ’em, three naps.

My body is readjusting. And while this story is kind of cute, it’s a little scary too. Thankfully this “relapse” was a benign one, and shooting caffeine  isn’t going to wind you up on Intervention (actually, no addiction is going to wind you up there since it was just cancelled, but you get the idea), but it was still a wake up call. I need to keep this stuff in check. Moderation in all things, right? Well, I can’t moderate caffeine. Just not possible for me.

But I can work on my moderation of Peach Fresca. Do you know I wrote them and asked to be their official blogger sponsor and they never wrote back? Jerks!

You ever notice how guys that are vegan are total weirdos? You can be a chick and be all the vegetarian you want, but a guy who only eats wheat grass is a bonafide freak. Why is that?

About a year ago I noticed an itch on the top of my head. At first I thought it was my crown chakra opening up to the universe. Then I remembered I haven’t one ounce of spirituality or patchuli oil. This was a dry skin itch!

Now, as a blonde guy who wears white business shirts to work, I’d like to tell you that I don’t have dandruff. I’ve never seen flakes, but they could just be buried among the white cotton lapels. I’m not sure. I goddamn hope not.

When this happened I freaked out. I found myself scratching the top of my head like a spaz. And you have to realize I’m constantly in meetings all day with people. Scratching the top of a full head of hair looks weird. And I’m weird enough without the picking at myself. At the grocery I purchased a whole bunch of products for itch control and dandruff reduction. Nothing worked. Every hour or so I needed to scratch near the frontal lobes.

I was terrified that this was some weird indication that I was starting to lose my hair. Thankfully I don’t think that is happening.

I then wondered about shampoo in general. Even though I use the really expensive stuff like Kiehl’s (my sister works for L’Oreal and hooks me up), maybe it was drying out my hair. I also put in a molding creme that for sure has alcohol in it. That dries it out, too. Well, I can’t give up the creme as my coif needs to be positioned just so. That left shampoo and conditioner.

Researching online the necessity of shampoo I came across this movement called “no-poo.” Yes, it’s about, you guessed it, stopping all bowel movements through radical vomiting. It’s controversial, but effective. No, the “no-poo” movement is people stopping shampooing and conditioning. See, the theory is that there’s this stuff in shampoo called SLS which apparently strips your hair of sebum, which is the natural oil the scalp produces. You replace it with conditioner, but the whole process is damaging and  unnecessary   I’m sure this is all overblown and that shampoo is fine and all, but I looked more into the method.

Here’s what you do instead.

You keep showering like normal, but you use a baking soda and water spray to soak up the extra oil from the hair. Then you use an apple cider vinegar and water spray for conditioner. I know it sounds wild, but that’s the method. People swear that after a few weeks on this their hair has never looked better.

I bought the vinegar and baking soda and spray bottles. Loaded ’em up as per the instructions and went to work. Here’s the problem. The molding creme doesn’t really wash out with just the baking soda. Maybe I need more baking soda, but my hair’s always got a little shit in it, even after the wash. It’s not squeaky clean. That’s okay. It’s not like I’m running my hands through my hair all day long. I’m not that kind of asshole.

But, the itch is gone. I hope it left my head, flew down the street, and landed on one of my enemies. Actually I hope it landed on their crotch.

So, I have an itch-free but probably filthy scalp. If you plan to make-out with me in the  foreseeable future I encourage you not to run your hands through my locks during you ravishing my bodice.

About three years ago I even gave up caffeine. While never a coffee or soda drinker (we grew up saying “soft drinks” because “soda” was too low-class), I got hooked on energy drinks. I was engaged at the time and my fiance thought it was cute that I had this one vice. Harmless, right?

Well, not really. Back then, I responded pretty hard to caffeine. It would get me high. Now, not as bad as a crank abuser shooting ice between their toes. I wouldn’t hear colors or watch the wall breathe but I did get a wicked endorphin rush.

I also turned into a bit of a jerk.

Caffeine had two additional side effects – it removed all empathy I had for human beings and decreased the tiny bit of patience I  possessed. This is a deadly combination of jackass.

I would turn into a chatterbox and endlessly wax philosophic until my poor woman wanted to hang herself. She wasn’t as talkative and just wanted me to shut the fuck up. Since I had ginseng, B vitamins, and 1000mg of caffeine coursing through my pancreas, all I could do was express every thought as it arose. And it also gave me the false sense of brilliance. My girlfriend would grow tired of me and I would get furious that she didn’t want to stay up until midnight discussing whether we truly have free will about our feelings.

We would get into horrific fights and she’d blame it on the caffeine. She was right to do so.

So, I quit. I’ve lived off of Fresca and water for years now. No caffeine. Just me and sobriety. Peaceful.

Then, a few days back one of the Jewish fellows in the office brought in a two-liter of kosher Coke. It’s a different formula in that it contains real sugar as opposed to artificial sweeteners. In a moment of weakness I poured a cup. Ten minutes later the rush hit me. I was back, baby! Like a junkie I needed more.

I managed to hold off until this weekend and for fun decided to take a caffeine vacation. Whereas most people would take a break from caffeine I decided to hit it full throttle over the Easter break. Enjoy myself.

Something has changed in how it affects me, however. I don’t know if it’s the four years of therapy or if my body has changed or whether I’ve been healed by Shiva, but my body reacts totally differently to caffeine. Yes, I still get the endorphin rush and sense of well-being. But now, I can laser focus like you would not believe on work tasks. I had my most productive day this year today. I’m sort of a creative spaz – great at ideas, terrible at organization and details. Today I was all about prioritization. I managed to organize the next month of tasks and I only stopped to eat some ham and turkey. Gotta protein up, you know.

I did notice one downside – my creativity decreased to almost nil. Normally I come up with good jokes, tweets, and ribald boners throughout the day. Not today!

But, I wasn’t a jerk! Well, actually, this guy on the bus kept insisting that I was a celebrity and that he’d seen me on television. After a minute of not convincing him I just put my earbuds back in while he was in mid-sentence. Inside I was proud, however, to be mistaken for somebody famous. Ha.

Oh, and caffeine makes you pee a lot. Sort of forgot about that. Damn diuretic!

In fact, right now I’m stoned to the gills on energy drinks. I got a mighty buzz and the ability to see every pixel as I type. But no good jokes. It’s a creative killer.

Also, I’m afraid of getting addicted to this feeling. I don’t want to be a daily caffeine person. The withdrawals are brutal. Also, that means I will suck at work if Walgreens runs out of RockStar Zero Carb Blueberry Extra Intense Power Surge Nectar Explosion Juice.

So, my caffeine vacation will be coming to an end shortly. I need my creativity and I’ll just fight against my inability to concentrate. Or maybe I’ll have my doctor hook me up with some ADD meds. You get the same buzz, I hear. Then it’s not an addiction. It’s a prescription!

photo credit: International Man of Conundrums via photopin cc

I was thinking about this today as I sat in my terminal watching a group of silverbacks congregate around a garbage can. There were five of them and they appeared to be going on a vacation that required a tremendous amount of paperwork. I know old people aren’t great with technology, but my god the paperwork they were carting around was impressive. Don’t they know you’re not supposed to be that organized to go out to Palm Springs? Not trying to be ageist but I highly doubt they were going to do a fly-over in India and pick up a Sherpa before scaling the Himalayas. Drop the paperwork. Just print out your boarding pass like a normal person. Nothing more is required. You don’t need to have the Tony Orlando buffet dinner tickets for Tuesday night poking out of a manila folder in the airport.

Grandmas love carrying paperbacks. I’ve never seen an old person in an airport that ponied up an extra $5 for the hardcover. I understand paperbacks are easier to transport and let’s face it, osteoporosis is not for the young. I will say this, though. Old people read the good shit. They’re not wasting time on romance novels or the Bible. It’s always some bestseller that you want to read. So, points to their favor on this one.

Let’s talk about grandma hair. I just realized today that you never see a grandma with long hair. They all go short. Now, I understand that as a woman (well, I’m not a woman) your hair is a real pain in the ass. For sixty-five years you get it bleached, permed, frosted, braided, chopped, layered, burned, and ironed. And after that you’re done. It’s still styled, but there’s always a big part down the middle and then it poofs up around the front. It kind of looks like mine except stark white.

Aside from similar hair-dos old women love themselves some same solid color sweater. I don’t think Coldwater Creek makes one that doesn’t button in the front. Hey, Grams, are you wearing a white turtleneck underneath that sweater? You know you are.

Here’s the thing about seeing grandmas together. I’m not going to say they look happy. I think of a little girl excited about getting on an airplane for the first time tugging at Daddy’s shirt while he’s looking at his cell phone. That’s happy. No grandmas look better than happy. They’re content. They just sit there peacefully, reading or chatting with their girlfriends. In their bright red pants.

These old ladies know something the rest of us don’t. If you poke one and ask a question they don’t freak out on you or act as if you’re taking them away from something important. They just stare politely, listen, smile, and answer. It’s how I’d like to be. But I’m not yet because I’m a total spaz.

Let’s get back to the group thing. I hope one day I have a bunch of old guys that goes on trips together with me. I should start making friends now. Although, you never see seven old guys together ready to hit a cruise. It’s always the ladies.

The ultimate is when you see five grandmas on the extended golf cart that the maintenance guy is driving down the walkway. It very well may be the cutest thing on the planet. Sorry kittens.

Whenever I see a group of older contented women about ready to go on a trip I become a tiny bit emotional. I think of them hanging out enjoying each other’s company as one of the rewards in life. You bust your ass for fifty years on the job, raising kids, keeping the house in order, doing all the right stuff. Then you get to pal around with your friends on vacation. Now, just remember to stand on the right side of the moving pedway, goddammit. I’m going to dislocate a shoulder to get past you if I have to.

photo credit: adwriter via photopin cc

When I hit junior high, I knew I had a to-do list problem. I simply didn’t keep one. That’s the age where I needed to start writing things down and planning appropriately. As a verified ADDer my memory sucks. I don’t mean in the same way everyone thinks their memory sucks. I’ve had a least a dozen people tell me my memory is the worst they’ve experienced. I wish I could over-exaggerate this fact, but it would not be easy.

In addition to being a spaz that’s constantly not present mentally I’m also a creative-type. This means I’m pretty good at sitting down and thinking stuff up. As the scales are tipped heavily in that favor my abilities to reason, rationality, and use logic are somewhat deficient. I have talked about believing that pasta came from the sea until I was a junior in high school.

Note – If you search for “doesn’t pasta come from the sea” you’ll see that my genius comes up number one in Google.

In college I really tried to plan. I was heavily into self-improvement and studying accelerated learning techniques. I became a speed reader and had a high comprehension at about 1300 words per minute. I learned tricks of master memorizers and could photocopy documents in my head for later retrieval. While all of this is very cool I still had a terrible time putting into action such tasks like doing my laundry in advance of being out of underwear.

Well, I’m thirty-six and I still don’t keep a regular to-do list.

My desire to stay organized is unmatched by common man. I have purchased books, planners, seminars and software to keep me organized. It’s just something that doesn’t come naturally.

When I met my wife she was a fantastic planner and logician. Usually people with medical degrees have to be. There’s such a large amount of studying involved that you become good at planning, remembering, and executing. She didn’t have much creativity, but I had plenty for the both of us. Not only did she remember (she kept lists) what she was to do each day, she had a knack for remembering what I was to do that day as well. It was awesome.

While never a nag she would remind me, “Hey, today why don’t you do x, y, and z?” If you’re like me I highly recommending marrying one of those. Eventually they’ll get fed up and divorce you, but for a few years it’s a great ride.

I am committing to you bozos that I’m going to work this organization thing out. Over the past two years I’ve really stepped up my game. But even I have slip ups. I’m one of those people that will forget to pay his credit card bill on the thirteenth every month. The past two months I was a day late. I called all freaked out to the company and they waved however those charges thing works. Every other bill I have goes out automatically from my bank each month because of my memory.

From time to time I’m going to check in with you to hold myself accountable. For example, I have three contests for you that I haven’t executed because I keep forgetting to write them down and plan them out. To the dude who keeps emailing me photos of his wang, no, that’s not one of the contests. Also, please direct those photos elsewhere. I already have a wang.

Just for poops here’s my latest pocket notebook made by a local company in Chicago. I also ordered a fountain pen so I can seem ultra awesome to on-lookers.

This is going to sound like an insanely stupid problem, but here goes. I’ve been biking to work every day for over six months. Here in Chicago it’s getting close to hanging up the bike shorts (I have never worn bike shorts) for the season. Winter is coming.

I’m usually comfortable until it dips below forty degrees. Then it’s simply too damned cold to be biking ten miles each way. Plus, I have the dog strapped to my back and I’m sure she isn’t happy when she has two sweaters on and is still shivering.

Oh, I haven’t got to the problem yet. Damned exposition!

The problem is that:

• I’m used to burning hundreds of calories each day
• I’m a spaz when I don’t burn hundreds of calories a day

What this means is that if I don’t work out I have all this extra energy that needs to be released. I’m not a relaxed person by nature. What happens is the energy starts leaking out on all sorts of stuff – for example I had two minor freakouts today at work for benign events. I just freaked out in my head, but it was a bit of a rager.

Also, when I’m talking to Jessica over the phone, I’m more apt to want to increase the energy of the conversation to burn it out. Sometimes this becomes funny material, other times exhausting psychological  discussions  of people in her building that will approach her while she’s walking the dog and talking with me and they have a  three minute conversations with her even though she’s clearly on the phone and too polite to tell them to bugger off.

Trying to brush up on my Brit expressions as I’m doing a radio interview in a few weeks. I’m going to give them my list of “Stupid British Slang.” My favorite British word is “fanny” by the way. I can’t believe we Americans got that one so wrong.

This energy needs to go away. The only way I know how to do that is via exercise or valium. Since I don’t do drugs or alcohol I have to hit the treadmill. I have the P90x Insanity program which is crazy hard, but I also have neighbors underneath me. The instructors have you jumping around like a moron and at 6am I’m not sure this will be well-received.

My other option – work out at night. Well, same problem with the downstairs neighbors. I do, however, belong to a gym, but I go to meetings at night for the various groups to which I’m involved.

Okay, I wanted to end that sentence with “groups I’m involved with” but I know that’s mechanically incorrect. I don’t think anyone truly gives a shit but I changed it anyway. “To which I’m involved” makes me sound like an asshole. If any of you know how to remedy that sort of thing, let me know. Happens to me almost every evening and I don’t know what to do. Except eat lots of chocolate and pass out.

Evenings are just too unpredictable and I’ll always find reasons not to go. I could head to the gym in the morning but that’s a whole three blocks away. I know – tragic. The odds of me getting up and stumbling to the family room are slim as it is. Putting on winter clothes and trudging outside, while completely reasonable, is unlikely.

So, part of me wants to say, “Suck it up, loser! Get to the gym or press play on the DVD like a disciplined human being!” The other part of me understands the other part of me which is to go back to sleep and try to recreate that one dream I had where I was eating soup while sitting in a jacuzzi talking to four blonde sorority co-eds.

I still have a few biking days left and even though I’m wearing the thermal underwear and winter hat under my helmet I’m enjoying the ride. My shirts are soaked with sweat and I have to hang them to dry at work only to put them on again at five pm, but still. It’s fun.

It just occurred to me. Bring a second shirt to use on the way home. I’m smart!

photo credit: West Point Public Affairs via photopin cc