Where’s Whoopsie #18/Subway Sociology #5: Mixed Martial Arts

First, for those wondering. The bad news is that I don’t have a new job quite yet. The good news is that that is because the interview process keeps getting longer each time I go through it. I’m not finished with it yet, but I’m also not out of the running yet, either. There are more stages than I expected. I’ll be making that longer commute at least one more time before I can determine if I’ll be making it permanent.

I’ll use that “at least one more time” as a chance to gather more data for my current hypothesis that one particular section of the subway line that I would need to take as part of that new commute truly has a higher likelihood of entertainment value than the earlier sections of the same line that I used to take daily. I find that, including this post, I have now written about the actions of my fellow passengers – and/or other ads and experienced events – five(!) times. These points of data make a beautiful line (bonus points if you are now singing that song along with me), and, for a would-be daily rider who is also a data analyst, a beautiful new series for my blog. I’m retroactively subtitling the previous four posts about commuting “Subway Sociology” entries #1, #2, #3 and #4.

One hypothesis is that this more-northerly-than-I-previously-commuted section of the line just has more interesting passengers in general. The null hypothesis, in turn, is instead that I have just needed more distraction from my own brain while riding this particular section of the subway – and thus have been more inclined to notice the fascinating actions of my fellow passengers while riding the rails – than while making other trips. I’ll need more data to truly determine, but, either way, my fifth unofficial/first official foray into subway sociology was a welcome distraction during what would otherwise have been a solid hour for the bully-in-my-brain to psych me out before my last interview.

It takes a lot of confidence to do anything other than stick headphones in your ear and avoid eye contact with fellow passengers on a subway. It takes a unique level of confidence to do double duty during your commute and incorporate your daily workout into it as well. Yet, one of my fellow passengers on the way to my last interview had the brass balls – er, brass bars – to do just that.

There was a guy on the subway who pulled out full-on boxing gloves and was using the handlebars that standing passengers hold onto like a punching bag. He must be at least somewhat trained because he did so with a rhythm that appeared – at least to my untrained eye – like something approaching “form” or “skill.” He even made a repetitive little “grunt grunt” like he was exerting effort in time with his punches. I can’t say I’ve ever actually watched a boxing match, but the action movies that I have watched that have included boxing have instilled in my brain the idea that those are the noises of proper breathing technique. A few people looked up briefly, but no one really batted an eye. As I said, it takes a lot of confidence to do anything other than stick headphones in your ear and avoid eye contact on my subway – or maybe my hypothesis is so valid that this kind of thing is sufficiently commonplace as to barely warrant notice.

Confidence is not something that is easy with Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. There will never be anyone harder on me than me. One of the ways I express that – in addition to the ever-present threat of a panic attack on the way to an interview – is that I can only really ever be a student or a veteran at something. I rarely am able to give myself enough time for a true “learning curve” for something new. I either need to be trying something for virtually the first time – and thus be given the “pass” that even if I suck at it, it’s ok because I’m a “novice” – or I need independent confirmation within the first few trials that I don’t completely suck at it. I pretty much started this entire blog on the premise that I needed to learn to be okay with being mediocre at something and keep doing it anyway.

But, other than my Where’s Whoopsies, I haven’t done a lot of letting myself be mediocre at things in the past year, shared on this blog or otherwise, because there have been too many truly scary things and too many legitimate “if I fail at this, something really bad could happen” (like whatever the Hell the 9th Circle of Hell can dream up). I haven’t had the brain space left over to try to practice self-care through mediocrity. I think I’ve actually written more about my boss’s humorous failures than my own. And, while I’ve shared honest-to-goodness failures like jobs I definitely didn’t get, those weren’t quite humorous.

That would-be boxer was kind of inspiring in a “why am I so hard on myself for being neurodiverse when this is what neurotypical looks like?” way.  My Where’s Whoopsies – aka allowing myself to self-soothe through repetitive coloring – have been a source of self-care mentally during many of those “this failure isn’t something I can laugh at if it happens” moments. I am very glad I set up the expectation that I can suck at them and it’s ok. They have been a highly necessary distraction from my own mind.

Unfortunately, they are also a bit hard on the wrists with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. Coloring in mandalas is a repetitive motion that can take it out of the hypermobile wrist even with ring splints. They aren’t truly a consequence-free distraction when the crisis gets bad enough. I still do them – and will still be posting them – but I couldn’t have safely done anywhere near as many mandalas as it would have taken to tangle with the 9th Circle of Hell last year and truly called it art therapy without my wrist having ended up permanently damaged.

My partner suggested a fairly obvious solution, at least from the perspective of someone who doesn’t have RSD. What if I just bought a three-dollar sketchbook and used my squishy gel pens to draw random doodles that didn’t involve repetition? All the benefits of coloring for mental health, with none of the risk of carpal tunnel? That probably would have been great last year except for the pesky fact that, included among the many things in my life that I tried once or twice and didn’t receive affirmation for in the past, is drawing. In fact, I received exactly the opposite feedback: I was told by my art teachers in elementary in no uncertain terms that I had no artistic talent whatsoever. I wasn’t about to do something I had concrete evidence that I sucked at during the Crisis of 2018.

But, as my Partner pointed out, I was also told I sucked at math in elementary school. Joke’s on those teachers since I’m now a professional data nerd? It’s 2019, no longer my childhood or the Crisis of 2018. Maybe it’s time I no longer allow the voice of long-ago art teachers to keep forcing me to choose between sore wrists limiting myself to mandalas or having no safe dissociative artistic outlet whatsoever when if things start to suck again? What’s the harm anymore if I suck at art? It’s not like I’m planning to quit my day job. I’m trying pretty hard to keep doing it, in fact. Can’t “Where’s Whoopsie” be expanded to include, “This entire drawing is a Where’s Whoopsie, but it was fun to make. Suck it, critics?”

My Partner was convincing enough to get me to order that three-dollar sketchbook during this current interim period between active crises. I almost gave up before I started when it arrived and I first saw the example sketch on its cover. If the cover picture below is truly the level of “art” the manufacturer expects to grace its pages, then I failed them the moment I ordered their product. My old art teacher was harsh, but she was probably right that I will never achieve anything near that level of artistic talent.

<Image Text>: Cover of a Strathmore Sketchbook with a scarily good sketch of a young woman wearing a scarf.

But, I’m willing to try out having a hobby I’m only mediocre at again for a bit for the sake of my poor wrists. (Or at least as a back-up distraction for my next subway ride to an interview in case my fellow passengers fail to properly entertain me.) Thus, for this edition of Where’s Whoopsie, there’s no special trick to finding the Whoopsie. The entire sketch is the whoopsie.

It is also my attempt at capturing why “relaxing” is such a foreign concept for someone with ADHD and a bully-in-her-brain. Enjoy my first attempt at drawing something freehand since my last ever required elementary art class. And, since you’ll probably be wondering: 1) the little purple things are supposed to be lavender flowers. They are not grapes, as my Partner guessed; 2) The <image text> is as much for the visually unimpaired as for the visually impaired. I know you probably will have no idea what it is without explanatory text even if you can see it; 3) I wasn’t going to sign the sketch – because who would bother to plagiarize my terrible art or even call it art – but that same Partner who thought my lavender flowers were grapes also glared at me until I did. If the signature seems a bit pretentious, blame him not me; and finally 4) regular Where’s Whoopsies will resume shortly.

<Image>: Girl swinging from the moon in what should be the most relaxing fantasy landscape ever. But, her brain is full of chaos anyway. <Image Text>: “ADHD: when you can think of everything except nothing…”

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Need a recap of anything I’m talking about in any post? Check out the Glossary of Terms.

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Trust in Mental Health Treatment (Part 4): Choose Your Own Adventure

So, I potentially have good news. I’ve gotten to the final round of the interview process for a new job in my same city. It’s what I do now but with a different organization. I’ll update eventually whether I got the job, but talking about it right now feels a bit too much like tempting fate. I’m not a fan of pure CBT, but even I’ll admit I’m engaging in a bit of magical thinking by staying silent. I know, I know. However, PTSD and its sense of foreshortened future mean talking about anything positive that hasn’t happened seems like it will only make me look like a fool when it doesn’t happen.

I have no such qualms, though, about talking about my fears of what will happen if I get the job. C-PTSD is fine with that. The commute will be just far enough that I won’t be able to make it to my therapist during her normal business hours. She was able to do a limited number of phone sessions while I was in the 9th Circle of Hell last summer because she knew that was an active trauma crisis, but she can’t, unfortunately, do regular phone sessions. I’ll also have to go to trauma yoga on Saturdays instead of during the week. That’s…not terrible. But, it will mean a bigger class in front of which to modify my yoga-for-hypermobility. There will probably be social anxiety compared to the three people that regularly go to the class I currently attend, but I guess I can live. How unsettled I feel not being able to attend weekly therapy, though, is one reason why I never fully wanted to develop trust with a therapist in the first place. Not all therapists are the abuse-permitting social workers of the 9th Circle of Hell, but, in the end, they are all running businesses. They’ll only modify so much, so my brain (bully and other parts) says don’t depend on someone for whom helping me lasts only as long as I am convenient. (Alongside the issues I wrote about in the first three parts of this series.)

Forget attachment. I’m still a survivor of enough systemic abuse that I’m shocked I even got to trust with anyone who is part of a system. But, shockingly, I did, and I don’t see myself being the kind of person for whom lightning strikes twice. My therapist attempted to suggest there might be others closer to my potential new workplace whom I could trust, but she shut up quickly upon seeing my look. She then switched to, “Ok, I think you are strong enough that you could do more like once a month. I think you’ve been through enough with irregular support during the Crisis of 2018 that you can manage in 2019.” I’d be willing to take a half day to see her once a month during her hours. I’ll admit to being scared of tapering therapy, but not scared enough to contemplate finding another therapist. The legacy of systemic abuse runs deep, and the system she is in – and the others that both my insurances have covered for outpatient therapy – are really not trauma-informed. She’s the rare exception in a clinic I’d otherwise bitch about. (My psychiatrist, who is not necessarily trauma-informed for most but likes me, has Saturday hours. I could keep seeing him.)

I’d actively choose once a month therapy over trying again with anyone else. But admitting out loud that therapy was an important part of my support system during the Crisis of 2018 was terrifying. What if I’m not really strong enough yet to taper? Last year was pretty damn re-traumatizing.

What if I shouldn’t even be looking for a new job at all because I don’t have the spoons? The commute isn’t just too far to make therapy: it’s also a commute at all. I’m currently a remote worker, and that saves a lot of physical spoons. It doesn’t save mental spoons, though, I’m only a remote worker because I exist within a limbo wherein my boss finds me too useful to purge, but too much of a hassle to talk to.

When I started to panic-think maybe I should just stay with my current company, my therapist very quickly shut me down by reminding me how many of my boss’s communications she has read while I cried. As she has stated, she “can’t ethically diagnose someone” she hasn’t met. But, while she can’t speak clinically, she did suggest that I do some serious research into the various presentations of narcissism and think hard about why my current boss was able to trigger full-scale PTSD episodes when I still saw him in person. 2018 wasn’t the first time I had to testify to ongoing abuse in the 9th Circle of Hell. I testified against the Thesis Defense Rests Stop the same week as my thesis defense (hence the moniker). Yes, each successive trauma adds a straw to the camel’s back. But my boss…also reminds me of someone who abused me personally in a way no one outside the 9th Circle of Hell ever has in my entire life.

The day of my end-of-year-review – which perhaps I will eventually write about – was a perfect example of my the way my boss can start the day in such a towering temper I wonder if I will still have a job at the end it, but then whiplash to being conciliatory to the point he asked if I could use more physical accommodations. What changed in between? A combination of a) something I produced being very well received by clients on a call between the beginning of the day and my review and b) letting him take all the credit for it. With my history, my instinct is to roll over and hand off intellectual credit for anything I do to anyone who scares me because C-PTSD says “stay safe by staying out of sight.” That…works with my boss. It’s probably a big part of why I got concessions and the rest of my office got fired last year.

But, as my therapist notes, he exacts a cost in mental spoons that is likely more damaging to me than the cost of the physical spoons from commuting. It’s not generally a smart idea to work for someone who pings your PTSD to flashback to childhood abuse. Even if I hadn’t experienced childhood abuse, working for someone who can flip moods so drastically and so quickly is not a great idea, period. Nor is working for someone who has flat out stolen the academic work of all those who are under him in a field that typically recognizes subject matter experts as experts. There’s also the pesky fact that I still have the gut instinct that the company itself isn’t financially stable, and I could lose my remote job by 2020 even if I’m able to keep my boss perfectly happy until the day the doors close for good. I’d rather choose my own adventure now, while it still is a choice.

Therapists don’t usually tell you what to do, exactly, but mine seemed worried enough by the prospect that I’d not take a job if I got it because of the fear of losing one piece of my support system that she ended with “we’ll work out what happens with therapy, but I really don’t think you should trust your boss longer when you have another option.”

We’ll see what happens. I don’t know if I will know yet by next week whether I’m their final candidate. Whether or not I do, next week’s post will be a review of the strategies that kept me sane while testifying to abuses in the 9th Circle of Hell in 2018 without consistent access to therapy. Maybe if I write out what helped me then, it will help others unable to access good therapy now, whether because of a therapy break, because they only have access to those horrible therapists in their area that are the reason I’m so afraid of ever starting over with someone new, or because they can’t afford decent care. (The U.S. sucks at mental health, did I ever mention that?) And, maybe it will also help to reassure myself that I can eventually return to working in a real office – with its increased physical demands upon my EDS/dysautonomia – because the mental benefits from reduced anxiety, depression, PTSD and panic are worth it. Maybe it’ll convince me that I can be strong later since I was strong enough before.

Also, if I flat out state that I won’t be writing about what happened with the job next week, then perhaps  I won’t feel internal pressure to “follow up” with the “bad news” my brain thinks it will inevitably receive. I write a lot about failure on this blog, but I’m trying at least this week to tell myself someday I might also write about success.

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Need a recap of anything I’m talking about in any post? Check out the Glossary of Terms.

 

Written on the Prophetic Plates?

<Image>: Smug cat on a ledge with a broken vase on the floor. <Text>: This is why we can’t have nice things.

My Partner and I are going to a game night tonight hosted by someone I met through an ADHD support group. So, of course, I had a dream that the hosts kept serving me party food on real plates, and I kept progressively dropping them. I desperately tried to explain, “Please stop giving me nice things. I drop things constantly,” but somehow the china I was handed just kept getting progressively finer…

On the one hand, I hope that doesn’t become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is wet and slippery out today. I also didn’t sleep well – no thanks to that dream.  And, it would be nice to actually make “friends” with people before I break something (of theirs or of mine) in front of them. On the other hand, if there will ever be a household where, “I know I’m clumsy, but I forgot to put my plate down before my hands got too tired” might actually make for an understandable explanation, perhaps it would be a fellow neurodiverse household?

I’m sure this dream has nothing at all to do with the fact that I read the Ehlers-Danlos Society’s “Mental Health Care Toolbox” on Facebook yesterday or the fact that it noted that people with EDS and HSD have a higher incidence of anxiety, depression, and ADHD. Or the fact that I have fallen down in public places twice recently. Nothing at all…

<Image text>: I’m not clumsy. It’s just the floor hates me, the tables and chairs are bullies, and the wall gets in the way.

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Need a recap of anything I’m talking about in any post? Check out the Glossary of Terms.

 

Improv #13/Subway Sociology #4: Party Poppers

*Knock knock*

“Who’s There?”

“Wobbly”

“Wobbly who?”

“Wobbly out in this weather when I know I will fall over? I’m very dedicated to my art, ok? Now offer me a seat on this train before it’s you I fall onto…”

Amtrak preemptively canceled some Acela routes and other regional commuter routes in advance of the snow this weekend. City transit authorities are posting their standard “expect delays on above-ground routes.” In addition to keeping us abreast of their plans to keep us safe – albeit possibly not on time – during the winter weather, both agencies also seem to be touting themselves as the solution to all the city’s partying needs lately.

On the way to Improv today, I saw ads introducing several bus and train operators who “skip the party, so you don’t have to.” I’m guessing several other class members also noticed the recent uptick in public transit emphasis on how their employees ensure we can have a good time by working while everyone else is playing. “Partying” was a prominent theme in our montages today.

There’s nothing more thematically appropriate for that inevitable first time I sublux something on stage and fall over than during a scene in which the administration of a “party school” with a name one letter off of the Ivy League discuss how to improve their image. This was a class, not a live show, so people stopped scene work and asked about me. I almost wished it had been a public show, though, as I doubt I will ever again get such a gift of a scene to play off a sublux and associated fall as “intentional” than during that one.

With a class, it’s…well…as awkward to bring up EDS in advance as it is to sublux something on stage. I’m in the dual position of both performing in indie shows with a troupe, but also simultaneously being a student. I have to actually graduate from the theater’s comedy school if I ever want to audition for anything solo, and graduating to each next level requires not just an instructor thinking I am ready in my performance capabilities, but also having missed no more than two classes out of any session. The Crisis of 2018 ensured that I wasn’t in the position to even contemplate that kind of attendance commitment for the past two sessions, so I never even bothered to register. I also fainted just before the first class of this current session and thus missed its very first class. So, no guarantees I will make the attendance requirement this time around either. My indie troupe – who are all now graduates – didn’t drop me when I got behind last year. I could conceivably have had my first onstage sublux happen during a real performance, with a team who have been warned in advance to just keep going and use the exquisite thematic timing to heighten, heighten, heighten.

But, as with last week’s hair appointment, I don’t typically get that lucky when introducing my diagnoses to new people. Explaining how I occasionally fall over – and to just give me a minute to see if I can reorient my own joints before treating it like a big deal – is still just…awkward. I never know how to respond to the sort of excessive solicitousness that people offer immediately after they first see me faint or pop a joint.

Striped Girls Can Jump?

<Image Text>: “Your flexibility amazes me. How do you get your foot in your mouth and your head up your ass all at the same time?”

People have the strangest reactions to learning about Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. So, telling them about it when you are already socially awkward quickly becomes a study in ridiculousness. For instance, I got to have that discussion recently with my hair stylist. It ended with me jumping up onto things alongside the majority of the salon staff. I promise there was no alcohol involved. I just would rather do practically anything – including impromptu social experiments – than make “small talk.”

My stylist knows that I have dysautonomia. I hadn’t exactly planned to tell her, as how does one broach that conversation during “small talk” at a salon, but fainting in her doorway last year kind of forced the choice between sharing the diagnosis or paying whatever the deductible would have been for an ambulance ride when the owner was afraid otherwise I’d die on him – or worse sue him. My old office, before my bully-of-a-boss fired everyone in it and made its lone survivor a fully remote worker, used to have a faulty heater. I had to wear a sweater, an undershirt, and a camisole just to keep from turning blue in that office most of the year. In winter, I’d then add a big heavy waterproof coat, scarf, gloves and hat on top of it to walk the about ten minutes from my office to where I get my hair cut. I learned last winter that just because it is 50 degrees inside your office and about 20 degrees outside, some salons will inexplicably choose to keep their facilities at about 80 degrees. If you walk into one of those salons wearing all those layers, you’ll pass out in the doorway from the dramatic temperature change. At that point, the cat’s out of the bag.

Improv #12: Funny You Should Mention That…

Image text: “Pretending to be normal, doing your best to act like you’re ok, day after day, week after week, month after month, it’s just so exhausting” over a woman crying.

For anyone wondering, the Thanksgiving turkey turned out great. Cooking a turkey is like cooking a whole chicken. If you want to practice before next year’s big day, cook whole chickens. Then, do the same thing on Turkey Day for about 3-4 times as long. (Also, turkey enchilada stew and buffalo turkey sandwiches feel much more like a “change” from a week of all-turkey, all-the-time than the standard turkey pot pie and stews that are usually recommended.)

Unfortunately, my Partner sent our only photos to his parents when he last spoke to them. Now there’s a remote chance they could someday identify me as the author of this blog if I recycled those pictures. I used an herbed-butter rub and baked the bird with roasted vegetables for aromatics. The pictures, through the magic of Google image search, could theoretically be vaguely identifiable. Every picture of the same natural feature looks about the same. (I did some digging to prove that to myself before posting Iceland pics last year.) As long as I pick out different photos for his parents and my blog, I can share travel photos here and still keep my worlds separate. But, I can never share the same photos, or my worlds might collide, right?

Not really. All Thanksgiving turkeys also look about the same, so there’s nothing truly stopping me from posting the same pictures here except my ingrained need to keep my worlds separate. There’s nothing except my ingrained need to control to whom and in what situations I reveal just how not normal I am. I am still masking in most of my life, and, though it sucks, I don’t think I’d know how to fully unmask in daily life if I tried. Unmasking hasn’t been safe in childhood, in my workplace and in advocating for my neurodiverse sibling within a regressive, systemically abusive state.

Candy Canes

Image: Pikachu in a Santa Hat from Pokemon Go.

Pokemon Go had a super event this weekend, in which all their previous special events were combined. Increased spawn rates for all prior Community Day Pokemon were available all weekend, but, within the weekend, there was one three-hour period wherein all the prior Community Day event bonuses (including double candy and stardust) were also available at once.

Because it is winter, everyone is sick, and I’m still destined to catch every acute illness that I am ever exposed to, I was getting over being sick and the concomitant flare this weekend. I was aware of the spoon cost to participate fully, but self-care sometimes means caring for my mental health even when it costs my physical health.

I’ve considered mobility aids before. There’s probably some residual feeling that I’m a pretender who doesn’t deserve one wrapped into my prior avoidance. It’s hard to get over a lifetime of ignoring your own needs because someone else has it worse. Mostly, though, I haven’t used one because I haven’t seen how it would help.

All the canes I’ve ever been exposed to are sturdy, wooden things that have to be held onto like an umbrella.

Where’s Whoopsie #16: Build Me Up, Butterball

“For pounds up to nine,” Peapod’s flat fee’s pretty fine
But they lied, they substituted and then (Ba-dah-dah)
Showed up from the store, a turkey fed many times more
It’s not them, will I let us down in brine? (Hey, hey, hey)

Maybe, baby, try to find (Hey, hey, hey)
Dethaw time and I’ll make us happy (Hey, hey, hey)
I’ll be home, I’ll be beside the stove waiting on food
Ooh, ooh

Why do you build me up (Build me up)
Butterball, baby
Just to give me dread? (Give me dread)
And mess with my head?
And then, worst of all (Worst of all)
The bully calls, baby
“You can’t keep us fed” (Keep us fed)
But it’s quite misled
I trust us (I trust us)
And the Internet darling
On prep, I will soon make a start
So build me up (Build me up)
Butterball, don’t break my heart

It’s true, we’re just two, but we could eat for many days more
If you’d just turn out right (Ba-dah-dah)
Although you’re quite rare, I am willing to dare just to gorge
Oh, let me feed us so! (Hey, hey, hey)

Maybe, baby, try to find (Hey, hey, hey)
Cooking time and I’ll make us happy (Hey, hey, hey)
I’ll be home, I’ll be beside the stove waiting to chew
Ooh, ooh

Why do you build me up (Build me up)
Butterball, baby
Just to lay breast down? (Lay breast down)
On plates all round
And then, worst of all (Worst of all)
The sides and all, baby
Why can’t you be alone (be alone)?
But I’ll make them too
I’ll eat you (I’ll eat you)
And everything, darling
Of all, I’ll eat more than my part
If you build me up (Build me up)
Butterball, don’t break my heart

I-I-I want you on Thanksgiving Day, baby
That’s why you were put in our cart
So build me up (Build me up)
Butterball, don’t break my heart

Top Ten Things I Hate About Top Ten Posts

I went away to a place that was not the 9th Circle of Hell this past long weekend with my partner. It was just a long-weekend getaway, and – given that my Partner had literally been to Hell the week before – it doesn’t quite imply everything is fine. However, it was enough of a mental reset for me that I don’t want to think or write about that other place if I can avoid it for a week.

I wasn’t sure at first what else to write about. The 9th Circle of Hell and the soon-to-be-introduced-on-my-blog replacement for the Bedbug Motel still occupy entirely too much of my brain space. It was harder at first to not think of the 9th Circle of Hell than even to not think of an elephant. Until suddenly, I realized…

Uh Oh, Spaghetti-Ohs!

You know what they say: if you’re stuck in bowl hole, don’t keep pigging digging.

I grabbed a few spoons – and I don’t mean of the good kind – and dug in this week. That’s the nature of executive dysfunction coupled with a tendency to dissociate.

I am not the best at self-care in general, and I am generally worse at it when I’m alone or dissociated. My Partner has left me in the awkward position of being alone in our apartment on the East Coast (well, alone except for our kitty*) twice this year.

The first time he didn’t leave because of an active crisis, and I was generally aware and present the entire time he was gone. Or, at least I was as aware and present as anyone with ADHD ever is. I have now entered into my second year living on the East Coast, but I haven’t quite gotten used to having to keep food on hand for Nor’easters in March. By the time my ADHD brain worked out we were having one the last time I was alone – which was, basically, as the snow was starting to fall – our grocery delivery service had already stopped deliveries. I had to resort to stock ups for the next three days from what I could find at the CVS on the way home from work.