All Kinds of Stuff and Things and Objects Found in Boxes

That's the best title I could come up with. It's 4 am, I just changed my daughter's very poopy diaper, and I figured that there's no time like the present to kick start my blog.

Just a heads up: Thumb typing on my Android might result in tortuous sentences, embarrassing hippopotatypos, and my 4 am brain might be prone to sentimentality - so be forewarned.

So. My house decided to get sold. So it is causing me* to pack up boxes of useful, important items, and boxes of useless, and seldom used crap. It is also causing me to wander about trying to figure out what to do next. It made a painter come in today (yesterday?) and massage paint into its tired seams, corners, and surfaces, and is working very hard to make me replace several basement ceiling tiles. I'm staying in Toronto. Hopefully close by. But the market's good, I am led to believe, and so it seems like a good time.

I'm fond of this house. And I trust that it wouldn't try to get itself sold unless it knew I could manage it, with an overload of big-life-things. It will encourage potential buyers to loosen their purse strings and cause my bank account to breathe a deep sigh of relief, encourage me to order pizza, and do what it can to have me settle in to watch some YouTube documentaries, or even go out and meet another human and do things involving hamburgers or cheese or something.

In the meantime, I'm looking for a contract or a full time gig.

I also started the ball rolling yesterday afternoon on a twenty year old dream of mine to get my Masters in psychology. Do what you love, right?

Here's a few things - in case you've made it this far into my post - you may want to know about what I've figured out in recent months.

1. I'm stronger than I ever thought I could be.

2. Everyone is carrying a frighteningly raw crate full of hurt, terror, longing , desire, insecurity, and fear within their psyches - and it is always demanding to be opened, and exposed to the searing light, and fresh air. Find a way to own it. Find out how to become acquainted with it so that it becomes your strength, and not your burden. And all that... And be decent to everyone you meet. But have a plan to fuck off (multiple egress routes) at the first sign that they wish to fuck you over. :-)

3. I have too many pants, too many shirts, and altogether too much stuff.

And so it goes**.

I was interviewed by a reporter from NYC a couple of weeks back for an article she was editing on Adults with ADHD, and it was published, and it was cool to read my experiences online in someone else's voice.

Also, I was interviewed last fall for a book coauthored by a Canadian psychiatrist specializing in ADHD, and a Harvard Medical School psychiatrist. It's now out, and look forward to reading a little snapshot of the story of how my own train wreck of a life, crumpled self-esteem, and hopelessness was halted by an assessment, and a subsequent diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (Combined Subtype) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and competent treatment. And how it was transformed into a full-on awesome adventure of rediscovering life, my strengths, my buried feelings, and (did I mention?) my strength.

Oh. Hey. After 20 years of drinking 8 to 10 caffeinated colas, and coffees a day, I figured to stop. So 34 days ago, I chugged back a Diet Pepsi, and haven't looked back yet.

I don't drink. I don't smoke. I don't drink caffeine. But don't cross me, and don't test me. And expect the worst in a knife fight in a dark alley, if you ever try to start one with me. Metaphorically of course. I'm not a violent person. I'll simple pin you down, wait for you to calm down, and let you go with your pride intact, but without your weapon.

But dear readers - I beseech you. If I ever tell you I'm going vegan, or some such nonsense, you have my permission to chloroform me, tie me to a chair, and once I've woken up, to force feed me a huge medium rare Porterhouse steak au jus, smothered in horseradish, with a side of baked potatoes. Thanks in advance.

There's a boatload more I would love to write, but there's only so much my thumb will put up with, now that I've been thumb typing for an hour, and my eyes are tired.

And for some reason I have Motörhead's Ace of Spades roaring through my head. So, time to sleep.

Actually, here. Listen.

Going back to sleep.

Love and danger,

Mungo

*Note that the house appears to have agency in my post. This literary device was inspired by the beautiful writings of Kurt Vonnegut.

** This animistic narrative transition is brought to you by the 116 occasions Kurt Vonnegut in which he used this phrase in his fascinating and raw book Slaughterhouse 5, a title inspired by the name of the building ("Schlachthof-fünf") in which he and other Allied prisoners were kept. In this building, they took refuge and consequently survived the horrific massive incendiary bombing (total of 200,000 incendiary devices) of Dresden, Germany in WWII which resulted in an enormous firestorm which engulfed 12,000 dwellings, killing in one night 20 to 25 thousand civilians, and which was brought to you by Marshall of the British Air Force, Sir Arthur Travers 'Bomber' Harris, AOC Bomber Command, and signed off upon by Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill.