I'm basically being told "close that issue and write a new one with the same info so our statistics are better" which I am philosophically opposed to. Ugh.

Uh, yeah. Are your record-keeping requirements under any kind of regulatory authority?

Teppy, your Tim is incredibly wise. What I didn't understand about myself, because I was never formally diagnosed, was that I had developed a lot of coping mechanisms on my own, though I wasn't aware of it. I thought everybody was like me, they just handled it better, or they had some magic key that somehow eluded me, or something. I was very familiar with the terms "lazy and stupid," but what I got most often was, "Those tests prove you're so smart. You just don't try!" When I badly dislocated my knee, tore ligaments and did all sorts of damage, the orthopedist sat me on the edge of the exam table, both legs hanging unsupported from the knee. I could wiggle the toes on both feet, and raise the left leg out straight. But though I tried hard enough I almost passed out, I couldn't raise the right leg at all. I thought it was because I wasn't trying hard enough, but he explained I'd screwed the mechanics, it had nothing to do with my will or my effort. Later, I was able to make the correlation to how hard I tried in school, without results.

But when I had an ADHD child, helping him develop his own coping mechanisms was a priority. Fortunately or unfortunately, he's so gifted in IQ and intuitiveness he was/is able to pass most classes on in-class discussion and participation, and otherwise con, bluff, or charm his way out of conforming to standards. His methods set him up for a lot of failure, because he refused to admit he needed a different method of approach for things he couldn't bluff or charm his way through. He's a mediocre success at life, but he's a wonderful, supportive friend, and a good person at heart.

One of my coping mechanisms is a concentration fierce enough to shut out stimuli which have nothing to do with the task at hand. Developing that ability got me blasted on evaluations as "rigid" and "unable to multitask", and even nudged me toward a diagnosis of somewhat autistic. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

But, for someone CJ's age and younger, Tim's advice is sterling. Thank him on my behalf, for helping make things clearer for people who don't have any perspective on what ADD is like.

As for announcing one's arrival and departures, it's something that makes my life less fraught. I am so apt to lose things I'm rigid about returning them to their proper storage place. And while I don't demand an itinerary, I do expect a rough return ETA, or a call notifying of any delay, and for members of the household to announce departures. It's mortifying to be talking to somebody who left the house twenty minutes ago. A quick kiss on the cheek is a good thing too. What if it's the last time we ever see each other? Go on, mock.

I say goodbye to my cat when I'm leaving if she's nearby.

This too. Our former feral is scared of *everything*, and it reduces his anxiety if we formally say goodbye before we go, and announce our return, so he knows it's not Cat-eating monsters coming in the house.

Scrappy's DH is heartmeltingly sweet.

All best thoughts and wishes, Burrell.

I think as long as no one's first thought is "festive" when they see your outfit, you're fine.

My family does the purple and the red, so I can see how other people would think festive.

I usually make sure I am in a dark dress for funerals.

Suzi et als- someone just posted about ADHD and decision making on Jezebel's Groupthink [link]

This made me think of myself- I am so bad with this:

In my personal life this manifests itself in several ways, an example being: an inability to order from a menu. If I've been to a restaurant before, I always order the same thing. If I've been to a similar type of restaurant, for example Mexican food, I always order green enchiladas. If a simple option is unavailable I could spend hours looking at the menu if it was an option. Instead, I usually choose what someone else at the table is ordering.

No regulatory requirements for that portion of the job (I mean, "identifying problems" is a requirement by law, but not the specifics of how they're reported to the client or whatever). It just irks when different things are being done on different projects, and the the PM on this (who pisses me off to no end) refers to nonexistent teleconferences all "well we discussed this on the April 7th call" implying I'm not listening or should be with the program...THERE WAS NO CALL ON APRIL 7th! And the last time I remember hearing about it was when I argued it and they tabled it for further internal discussion. Ugh.)

One of my coping mechanisms is a concentration fierce enough to shut out stimuli which have nothing to do with the task at hand. Developing that ability got me blasted on evaluations as "rigid" and "unable to multitask", and even nudged me toward a diagnosis of somewhat autistic. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Actually, extreme hyperfocus is a characteristic of some types of AD/HD. Not everyone has it, but it's pretty common. Tim's hyperfocus easily tunes out things I didn't think it was possible to tune out. (I think -- MAYBE -- he would react to our house blowing up, but I don't want to test that hypothesis.)

someone just posted about ADHD and decision making

Oh, Jesus. Tim is constitutionally incapable of deciding things. If I ask him the open-ended "what do you want for dinner?" he responds with a totally blank look, like I just started speaking Swahili. So I tend to either offer 2 choices ("Do you want stir-fry or tamales for dinner?"), or I ask if my choice is okay ("Is stir-fry okay for dinner?") And that generally works.

(It is frustrating to me, though, on the occasions when I don't want to fucking decide what to eat. Because if *I* don't, we literally won't eat. It's happened several times. Tim just gets a handful of pretzels after work and then will putter around until bedtime, while I get angrier and angrier. And it's not a deliberate passive-aggressive thing; he just can't decide. So I have to remind myself that for all the years I lived alone, *I* did decide what to have for dinner, every time, so in the face of Tim's inability to decide, I can damn well do it again. Those are generally cereal-for-dinner-at-11-pm nights.)

That's why I have dice I can resort to to tell me what to eat. Or the old reliable what-goes-bad-first algorithm.

Oh, fuck me sideways, I think something's going wrong with the house sale. We are never going to sell this fucking thing.

NOOOOOO. Not gonna happen, Dana. It is just a bump. (I hope, I hope, I hope)

I have decided to work my cooking by cooking a meat/main meal for four three times every other week. This seemed like a great idea week 1, but it's week 3, and I don't wanna pick food from now.

I also really like cereal at 11.