Mirror, Mirror, On My Kitchen Floor

This painting is my interpration of the Magic Mirror from Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. I made it for my wife's office Halloween party.

Magic Mirror: "I can't believe that you use full spectrum lighting in your kitchen."

Every year, her office has contests for Best Costume and Best Decoration. This year, my wife's team chose Snow White, and I was conscripted into painting this piece for her team.

I started off re-watching the Mirror's scenes, watching how the mirror expressed itself and how the infernal magic smoke moved. Then I ran a Google images search of the "Evil Queen Talking Magic Mirror." I sketched a half-dozen studies of the image, and subsequently went at it. Acrylic paint on an oval canvas. I set it up in the kitchen here next to the open dishwasher to establish a sense of scale. This was a lot of fun, but I am glad that I did not have to paint this gratis.

Remind Me the Value of Snark

I love to read, and I read everything that passes in front of me. I almost do not care what I read. Almost.

I can derive more nourishment from other people's words than from whole-grain-banana-blueberry-branmeal. My brain feeds on the sinewy morsels that I find on scraps of paper lying around the house or in grocery aisles. I have been known to read several books at a time: getting bored with one book (ADD people get bored easily), I will pick up another and others, returning to the original book weeks or months later.

I love our English language. I love discovering how cleverly people can use it – and how easily they can abuse it.

What I do not enjoy are the sarcasm and snark that adulterate the grain fields of contemporary literature. I will not advertise any tonight, and I am tired so this post will end shortly.

Sarcasm is the lowest form of humor. Honestly, how hard is it to say or write the opposite of what one means? And is sarcasm ever used for good? Is it ever used to make someone else feel good about themselves? Or to end social injustices, like childhood poverty or high cable TV rates?

Yeah, we don't feed snark to dogs around these parts. Sorry, I am tired.

Teamwork Is All About Communication

Among other items that I purchased today, I bought an organizer to help my wife and me better plan out our weeks/months. It is a wall planner, upon which we can jot down events and ideas as we (together) map out our upcoming weeks and months.

I am extremely lucky to be a part of such a great team. My wife is extremely patient with me, and she functions at a high performance level (e.g., she is a smart, high-energy, organized multi-tasker). She has taken the time to learn about ADHD and about how it affects our life, and that has been such a valuable gift that she's given me. By taking the time to learn about my disorder, she's proven how much she cares, and she has made herself an ally in my trial against ADHD.

Most days, I function.

Most days, I focus on getting one job done, and I pat myself on the back for doing that. On bad days, I get nothing done, and I often regress to a stage of pre-Cambrian bachelorhood, drowning myself in snack foods and beer. On good days, which are not as rare since I've met my wife, I can accomplish many tasks, and then my sense of self-esteem is likely to soar, then I wonder why I don't have more days like that.

Today, I've felt was a high-performance day for me. I accomplished much on my own, and I was really happy about it. Unfortunately, I neglected to communicate my itinerary with my wife (I wanted to surprise her). Essentially my work negated her own, and it conflicted with some of our mutual goals for the month – which upset my wife and that always puts me in a crumby mood.

Essentially, I might make progress in one area of my life, while often fouling up another area. The good news is that I am making progress, but mine is a slow row to hoe. I must learn how to keep myself motivated while communicating better with my wife, so that our plans don't conflict with each other.

Getting Lost Without Leaving the Living Room

Ever explored all the possibilities that Google has to offer? There is a veritable minefield of hoo-haws and doo-dads. It will ruin your day. I have created documents, custom maps, spreadsheets, and surveys from the Google domain. It is awesome, in the archaic sense of the word. Go ahead, check it out for yourself.

One of the aspects I like most about Google technology is that they make so many quality applications free. In a flatter world, this could effect geometric leaps forward in interactive creativity and research. For that, I wholeheartedly log, "Thank you, Google!"

To Blog Or Not To Blog

Read Driven From Distraction. Without a doubt, it is the best book on ADHD for those who have the disorder and for those who need to learn about it.

Started blogs before.

Got bored after while.

Then I started other blogs.

Got bored with them.

Just started a new blog.

I'm bored already.

The problem isn't that

I'm wasting time,

It's that I have the time to waste.

We'll all be lucky if this lasts a month.

Normally, I'm not so melancholy, but this gloomy weather is really getting to me.

I'll drop by my support group tomorrow night, but right now I have other stuff I need to do.

(TIP: If you're writing for people with ADHD, put all the most important information at the very beginning of whatever you've written. They probably won't read the rest anyway.)