I have finally read the article my mother sent me in mid-December, a Washington Post piece called Driven to Distraction, about teenagers with ADHD learning to drive. I wasn’t interviewed for the article, obviously, but I’m going to share my story anyway.

When I was learning to drive, I don’t remember my parents taking any special precautions specifically because of my ADHD. They did require that I have my ham radio license before getting my driver’s license, but that was a safety and communication issue. I had started taking Dexedrine when I was 11 or 12, so I’d already been on it for a couple of years. My education went pretty well, I think. I don’t remember missing any stop signs, I was pretty good at parallel parking, and despite a fear of changing lanes (and therefore a poor job of doing so) I passed my driving test. My parents’ early rules included “no radio” and “no passengers,” both of which I usually obeyed (though I eventually started to listen to the radio).

When I moved to Virginia and got my old 1983 Chrysler, I was driving a lot more frequently - I commuted 45 minutes to work each day (and that was against traffic). I also started to have little accidents. Nothing serious happened, just some fender benders - but they still scared me and didn’t help my insurance premium (let alone the cost of repairs to the other vehicle). I got one ticket, for speeding; I was 20 miles over the limit and could have been charged with reckless driving but sobbed so much the officer let me go with just the fine. Finally, one day, the sun was in my eyes as I waited in a line of cars at a stop sign. I moved forward when I shouldn’t have…and tapped the Corvette in front of me. That was it: I didn’t drive much after that. Eventually my car, which I kept parked on the street because our driveway is long, narrow, and steep, was taken to be an abandoned vehicle and towed. I never got it back, and I didn’t drive for a very long time.

After many trips in the passenger seat, my girlfriend finally let me drive her 1998 Saturn on short trips - runs to the grocery store, and so forth. We discovered that over the past couple of years, my driving skills have improved immensely. Only once have I touched another car, and that was when somebody zoomed into a parking lot while I was backing out of a space, and then it was only a bumper-on-bumper touch and we didn’t even exchange information. I’m now a reasonably good driver, even while eating or listening to music or NPR. I speed sometimes, but I always hang back from the car in front of me (it irks me no end when somebody takes the spot between us, and I have to drop back even more). I don’t know if it was age, overall experience, driving experience, or what, but I managed to learn how to drive properly. I don’t ever have to force myself to focus on driving, except when I’m sleepy and the sun is in my eyes so I squint and therefore feel drowsy.

I’m glad to see people are starting to realize that not all kids with ADHD outgrow it. I was one of the early diagnoses, before every kid who fidgeted got pegged with ADHD and got a prescription for Ritalin. (I continue to feel that it’s overdiagnosed, and parents are using it as an excuse for not parenting at all, or for taking away blame for poor parenting.) There wasn’t much support for my mother when I was growing up, but now there are more than 150 books on Amazon…most of them about children and teenagers. Next there were some books on college students with ADHD, and there are now several on adult ADHD. It’s underrecognized and largely misunderstood, but maybe people will learn more. (I’m still hoping to write a pamphlet or booklet - or book! - targeted toward employers. I just started the vocational rehab process because of my ADHD, so they’ll help, but it would be nice to have something to hand to potential employers to say “see, you should hire me even though I have ADHD” - something like that.)

Thanks to Caitlin I found Blog Patrol, which is just another remote counter service - but it seems to be a good one. In the few hours since I put it on the site, I’ve learned that people got to Amanita.net by searching for “homemade shared porn” and by finding hidden links like my listing at TechnoDyke, which I need to mention on the DykeWrite blog. I also found The Boston Dyke in my referrer logs, which means that somebody’s clicking through the DW ring.

When I signed up for BlogPatrol, I also came across Blogarama. It’s another one of the six zillion blog directories out there, but who says you can ever have too many of those? I took note of it especially because it’s powered by phpLinks. It’s a pretty slick interface, and I’m going to look into transferring my hierarchical link directory over to that (from Links 2.0, which is by Gossamer Threads).

And it seems that people are finally getting themselves into GeoURL - there are more local names I recognize now. Woo!

Christine mentioned the Bloggin’ Lovefest, and I decided to take part. My original intention was to write 150 words each about 10 people, but so far I’ve only ended up with three. I may do this again come Valentine’s Day - it seems like an appropriate time to do it. Or maybe I could do it every 14th of the month?

Kristine is among those bloggers I admire from afar, with a (usually) hushed respect for her awesome talents. Never have I met someone with such skill and renown - who is also so accessible! Kristine truly provides several public services to the blogging community, and for that she has my utmost admiration. This is a woman with fantastic graphic design ability, mind-blowing programming prowess…and she has put together a fantastic set of links for Movable Type users and bloggers in general (and even just programmers)! What’s perhaps most remarkable about her link list, now that I think of it, is that she’s generated her own system to add to and maintain the collection. On top of all that, she’s the head honcho behind Blogplates and Blogstyles. But as I mentioned earlier, she’s also a delightfully friendly person. I know she must have so much else to do, but she still manages to find time to comment on my site - and that feels good.

Mariann was one of the first people I met through blogging, and she remains one of my favorites. Her interests don’t always overlap with mine, but her journal and blog are a delight to read. Her writing style is attractive, making even mundane this-happened-today posts worth reading - and she’s delightfully prolific! And her blogging aspirations are inspirational! It’s nice to see so many useful plugins and such implemented in a way that makes me realize I could use them, too. I’m also grateful to Mariann for many dozens of links, both blog-related and otherwise. (Thank goodness for her use of well-defined categories!) After a couple of failed meetings last summer, I’m still hoping for the privilege of meeting Mariann sometime this year. I consider myself privileged to count her among my friends.

Wil Wheaton makes it onto this list because he’s a celebrity blogger. Unfortunately he’s not as able to connect with his readers as non-celebrities, but I’ve got to acknowledge his willingness not only to learn enough coding to make a nice site, but to open himself up to the extent he does.

I happened across the perfect gift for any cat (or small dog): Clifford’s Cat Hats! There are some cute ones - the cowgirl Stetson and yarmulke, especially. It’s worth clicking through to each hat’s page, too, because most have adorable thumbnails of cats wearing each hat - and, in some cases, trying to take it off or otherwise grimacing.

Oolong the rabbit died last week. The pictures are making me cry. Also, I thought I had until the 16th to nominate for the Bloggies; turns out it ended last night. I never got mine in, so I won’t be one of the 50 chosen for selecting finalists. Oh well, at least I’ll get to give a prize. My E2 Secret Santa hasn’t been seen in at least two weeks, so finally the coordinator is going to get a gift out to me. Just my luck that I finally participate in the exchange, and I get screwed. Oh well, hopefully I’ll get the mix CD or something equally enjoyable. I have all these chores to do and all I feel like doing is sitting around, geeking, and crying. Oh, and eating.

Thanks to codeman38 for the link to DeafGamers! It’s a British site (the BSL fingerspelling across the top made me giggle, I’m not used to seeing that) that reviews game software from the perspective of a deaf player - is the game subtitled? Is anything important conveyed in the music or audio, or is it just a nice bonus for the game? They’ve got loads of reviews already posted, and welcome more from deaf gamers. The reviews aren’t just for deaf gamers, too, as they include general aspects of gameplay.

Part of the reason I’m answering this week’s Monday Mission is so I can ask Promo to put a link to the MM in the e-mail notification.

1. Have you ever bought something you were so excited about and found out later that it didn’t work? Were you able to return it? How did it go?
Just a couple of weeks ago, I bought the red Chinese outfit for my bunny. I got it home, and of course it had a hole in it! So I took that one back and didn’t exchange it for anything else. Then last Thursday I went to the other local Build-A-Bear shop, and they had plenty of that outfit. I used my frequent buyer card, and paid just 45¢ tax for it!
(more…)

I’m just not sure the eleven-year-old undergoing MTF hormone therapy in Australia is doing a good thing. I have no problem with youngsters identifying as transgendered, and I have no problem with the desire to change as soon as possible. My concern is biochemical: the child is in the middle of puberty. There are already hormones running rampant through the body, and now they’re adding more - but they’re different hormones. I don’t know if starting the therapy before puberty is a good idea either, but it seems like the middle of puberty isn’t a safe time for it. I know puberty is a long process, but it seems like it would be chemically safer to wait until it’s over before beginning the therapy - all other parts of the transition could begin now, but nothing that would alter the body. I’m looking forward to seeing how it turns out, especially considering that the target date for surgery is just three years away - at age fourteen.

Thanks to Caitlin for the link!

I was organizing the Caribbean section of the bookshelves at work today, and I paused to pick up Frommer’s Caribbean from $70 a Day. I couldn’t remember how they determine the Dollar-a-Day figures, so I looked at the first few pages of the book. I was quite surprised to find a page marked Disappearance of Claudia Kirschhoch, which began with this:

Claudia Kirschhoch, an assistant editor for Frommer’s Travel Guides, went on a Sandals Resort press trip with a group of journalists on May 24, 2000. The itinerary was originally New York City to Cuba by way of Montego Bay, Jamaica. The American journalists were unexpectedly denied entry into Cuba. Because all return flights to New York were full, Claudia stayed on in Jamaica, at Sandals’ Beaches Negril, expecting to depart on her scheduled return flight to New York on June 1, 2000. The last confirmed sighting of Claudia was at the resort on Saturday, May 27, 2000. Her luggage, purse, passport, cash, credit cards, and camera were found in her room. Claudia was 29 years old at the time of her disappearance.

Unfortunately, it seems the trail has gone pretty cold by now. There’s a website called Help Find Claudia, with links to articles that are now pretty old but are still interesting. I wonder how Claudia’s parents felt about Chandra Levy’s disappearance and the subsequent discovery of her body. I wish them the best of luck, and I hope their daughter comes home.

I finally weighed myself this morning, after a couple of months without doing so and even longer without following my diet. I only gained four pounds, even over the holidays!! I’m delighted with this.

But now I have to run to work!