Today is Wednesday. No workout this morning. No face-to-face meetings scheduled. But my calendar is full of conference calls. When Pat drops me off at the office, I go upstairs to discover an empty floor. Those who were there the day before are all either off, working from home, or traveling today. There is no one to say hello to, no one to catch up with, not even anyone to ignore. I find this oddly distracting. Given that I even have calls through lunch, I find myself wondering why I bothered to come in at all. I do not rate a window office, so I sit in my empty office with no view and miss my home office with a fantastic view.
An interesting thing I have learned about myself in the age of ADD: I need low-level distractions in order to focus. It’s as if I need to give the “Squirrel!” part of my brain something to do so that it stops nagging at the rest of my brain when I’m trying to concentrate. Background noise at the office helps. Just knowing there are people outside my door helps. When I work at home, I have an easier time remaining focused on an intense task when my husband is home doing something on his own than if I’m home alone. I’ve found that listening to music helps in the absence of other distractions, but that’s not possible when on conference calls. Within an hour, I am coming out of my skin.
I don’t know what exactly it is that I experience when there is not enough going on at once–is it anxiety, boredom, hyper-activeness? I’m not sure. All I know is that I begin to work on one thing, I think of something else and open that, then I think of something else and open that. All while I’m on a conference call. Before I know it, I have about 40 documents open, 8 instant message conversations going, I’m halfway through answering 9 emails, and I’m in a complete state of confusion as to whether I’ve actually accomplished anything or not.
Complicating this state of task-hopping (let’s face it, there’s no such thing as multi-tasking) is the memory factor. Another thing I’ve learned about the scattered mind combined with a faulty memory is: when I start to do something, it often creates a memory of having done it. Whatever the function is in my brain that checks of to-do items, starting a task can trigger that little check. Once the item is mentally checked, I forget all about it. So, the more task-hopping I do, the more items I’m at risk of believing I’ve completed when in fact, they are only partially done. To combat this, before I close things, I carefully look at each window I’ve opened, figure out why I’ve opened it, and then determine if that item is complete or not. When I have a day like today with back-to-back conference calls where I’m able to just listen for my name during the first one (giving me the opportunity to open a lot), but the rest of them I have to listen and participate (preventing me from finishing anything I opened during the first call), I will often get to the end of the day and not have time to do a graceful shutdown, so-to-speak. Then, I put my laptop to sleep and hope it will wake up later and that I will remember where I was with all the stuff that’s still open. Of course, the more stuff I leave open, the more likely my laptop will hang and require a reboot, which essentially reboots my memory right along with the laptop.
It’s the end of the day, we have dinner plans with friends we haven’t seen in two months, and, as predicted, I have too many things open and must put my laptop to sleep and clean up later. Given that our friends are expecting a baby in about 2 weeks, I imagine we will not be out late and I will have time for this tonight. But, I hate going to dinner with things hanging unfinished both on my laptop and in my mind.
After a day of isolation, getting together with friends is even more welcome. Our friends include a little one who arrives in his mother’s arms half asleep. I try to remember what it feels like to have to jerk yourself out of sleep, rouse yourself and be social. He’s only 4–too young to have learned that skill set yet. He wants to be held by his mother, tiny and nearly 9 months pregnant. She holds him and I wonder how that’s possible.
Our small friend does come to life during dinner. He makes it through his meal with the promise of ice cream dancing in his head. There is a Graeter’s next door. Even though we still have Graeter’s in the freezer at our hosts’ house, I am just as excited about going next door after dinner as the 4-year old.
Outside, there is an event for a dog rescue. One woman has a tiny Chihuahua on a leash. He poops toothpaste-consistency yellow poop on the patio without his owner noticing. I think back to our Mastiffs and how I used to tell my friends that with Mastiff poop, you worry more about tripping over it than stepping in it. The Chihuahua’s poop is about 1/40th the size, just like the dog.
I watch as first one dog steps in the soft pile, then another. I tell a volunteer and she gets out a bag, but before she can clean it up, the Chihuahua owner steps on it, completely covering the mess with her Ugg boot. Amazingly, when she takes another step, it’s as if the entire pile has desinegrated and been absorbed into her sole and the patio pavers, leaving only discoloration behind. The volunteer looks at me and says, “Was it her dog who pooped?” I answer in the affirmative and she winks and says, “Retribution!”
After enjoying a scoop of pumpkin pie ice cream, watching the dogs, and watching our small friend attempt to play “Cone Hole” (Graeter’s humor–an ice cream place’s name for “Corn Hole”), we say our good-byes and head on home. It’s barely 8:00PM.
When we arrive at our hosts’ house, we eat some more ice cream and talk about the news of Steve Jobs’ death. Oddly, I feel more likely to buy an iPhone 4S because Steve Jobs died. There is no logic to this and I cannot explain it. We ponder what the impact will be on Apple and whether they can continue his legacy when he was so heavily involved in the details.
I find myself wondering what his personal life was like, if he was happy, if the legacy of Apple was worth whatever he sacrificed. I wonder what was most important to him and if he believed, in the end, that he lived his life according to his values and his priorities or if he struggled with regrets over the things he didn’t do. Then, I begin to wonder if building something like Apple is more or less important or valuable than building a family or anything else that someone dedicates their life to. But, this is too deep for contemplation right before bed, so I let the thought drift away as we say our goodnights and head upstairs.
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