Books and Life and Twenty Days
January 1, 2003

Things are looking up. I'm learning about myself and moving forward. And I'm dating Madison.

Life is good.

I have Attention Deficit Disorder. It's not new news, actually. I was diagnosed with ADHD as a child and promptly put on Ritalin. Mom, just as promptly, took me off of it again when she saw the drastic change in my personality. So we spent my entire childhood working together on concentration and follow-through -- not that I remembered it that way. At the time, I suppose, I just thought she was something of a slave driver.

Fast forward to a few months ago and my new epiphany: I was at home, visiting, and Mom made some quip about me having ADD. Since my brother had coincidently made a similar remark earlier, I went on the defensive and fought back with insincere indignation. "No I don't!" Mom laughed. It was a convulsive and deep laugh that said, "That's the most absurd thing I've ever heard."

Nothing else would have made me take the incident seriously. I've always thought I'd grown out of it, or had been misdiagnosed. Or maybe that I actually did have it, but that it wasn't really a problem. When Mom hit me with her laugh, though, it caught me off guard. And when I got home that night, I looked it up on the web.

Reading about ADD has been the biggest revelation I've ever had since I realized I was wearing the wrong gender. If you have ADD, or someone you love has it, I have to recommend "Driven to Distraction," by Edward Hallowell and John Ratey. Reading this book has been breathtaking. Breathtaking. It's the only book I've read on the subject, but with that caveat in mind I have to say that it has to be the best layperson's book about ADD in print.

It might be a fun journal entry to compile a list of all the personality quirks I've read in this book. A good eighty percent of everything there portrays me perfectly. All the bad, and all the good. And speaking of "all the good," one of the best things about the book is that it describes the gifts people with ADD have too -- it's not all bad.

Of course, I'll write more about this later, but on to other things. Life with Madison. I'm still a little ball of bliss. Things have been going great, despite the potential stumbling blocks we've already addressed together. The first was when I came out with my "gender history," as I like to call it. She wasn't fazed a bit.

The next was when she came back from Europe. We had two months of the most amazing correspondence, and I fell in love. She mentioned, though, that there was something we needed to talk about. It had to wait until we were face-to-face, she said, and apologized for telling me about it without being able to give me details.

Obviously, when she got back from Europe, I was brimming with excitement. Not because of what we needed to discuss -- I was trying not to think about that -- but because I was so happy to see her. What I wanted more than anything was to open the door and share an endless hug, and maybe a kiss too. But what happened was that she burst through the door, sat down on the couch, and went right into it: The Talk.

"There is something I have to tell you." She looked ill. I sat down next to her and waited. The funny thing is, when I've come out to people in the past about transsexualism, I've gone through the same thing. It's enough to say, "I have something to tell you." But after that, the words don't come. And they didn't come for her either -- not for a couple minutes.

"I have genital herpes." Funny again: now I can say I know what it is like to be completely caught off guard. It would have been much less of a concern, if we hadn't already had sex together. Oops. She went on to apologize profusely and offered to pay for testing. She mentioned that she hadn't had an outbreak for over six months and we went through the obligatory question and answer session.

The interesting thing was that I wasn't really mad. She looked stricken, and I felt worse for her than for the possibility of me having it. Of course, it occurred to me that I should be pissed, but that was all. Maybe my starry eyes were cushioning the blow, or maybe I realized the chances of my having it were slim. We had oral sex, partly underwater, in a steaming hot tub that was 2 parts water to 1 part chlorine, if my nose is to be believed. She had explained right away that she wasn't contagious when not having an outbreak, and of course, I hadn't anything resembling a cold sore in the two months following. [[Note that it is possible to be contagious however, and asymptomatic -- without symptoms.]]

This might be a good place for another book recommendation, "The Truth about Herpes." Again, the only I've read on the subject, but almost certainly "The Treatise" for those who want understand Herpes. (I searched several sites about Herpes for references and book recommendations.) If you don't think you need to read it, you might be interested in a few numbers. Some estimates state that one in three people have herpes. One in five seems to be the more conservative. It has reached epidemic proportions in the US and nobody seems to talk about it or understand it. (It's really not bad if you understand it.) Mom remarked to me once, after I read this book, that she just had a cold sore. Without telling her that I'd was recently an 'expert' I said "You have herpes!" She responded, "Not that kind of herpes."

Oh well. Anyway, it turns out that Madison's disclosure was something of a bonding moment for me. She not only accepted me for who I was, she was someone who had similar pains. She has to come out to people before dating. She can't have casual sex without disclosure. (She apologized profusely for not telling me at the pool -- blaming the Tequila for her indiscretion.) She knows what it is like to live with the constant fear of being rejected.

As for other the details, the other emotions and such, more later. We're being safe, and the odds are in my favor, too. But I can't put all of this into a single journal entry. That's what I get for not updating regularly. Someone slap me with a large fish, please...

Part Two -- The Journal Entry that Took Twenty Days
(01-22-03)

Am I pathetic or what? This was my big New Years Resolution. Write. No matter what, just write. If anything useful comes out of my life that even resembles art, it will be in writing, and so probably that's what I should do. Just write.

It's not all my fault. Work has been busy. I'm sick. (My throat hurts so bad that it feels like someone is choking me.) And I'm trying to buy a house -- and did too. Or at least, I had an accepted contract that seemed to indicate I was knee deep in the process. But, a home inspection that showed the house falling apart at the seams put an end to that. More details in a bit.

First, several months into dating Madison: It's hard to say when we started dating. We've talked about it in the context of anniversaries. Was it the night at the pool? The next time we saw each other -- a month later and the evening before she went to Europe? When she got back from Europe and we immediately flew off for a week in Vancouver? It doesn't matter except for having an official calibration day.

I've never had a relationship like this. (Though, as Shack and I discussed, I haven't had much in the way of real dating to begin with.) But at any rate, I've never felt so strongly before. And it's not all in a good way either. I've had jealously, suspicion, self-doubt, fear of rejection -- all that bad stuff that I thought I was completely immune against and far beyond.

Most of it has been kept wrapped up in a private cage of rational thought -- with a few vents to Shack and Jessica. And I've been getting better. I'm less likely now to curl up into bed and spend the day moping because I over and misinterpreted the smallest event or word.

Shack says it's luuuuuuv. I'm left to wonder, is it really? Could it be that Madison is the first person I've dated that I've ever significantly cared about? And that is why I thought I was beyond all the negative emotions people feel? Because I never had occasion to bother feeling them? The idea really puts a dent in my self-proclaimed emotional maturity. And all that talk about polyamory? Hah!

Anyway, things are still going well. My surprise emotions are subsiding and we're growing ever-closer together. I love her bunches, though she hates the word. [[Note: she said it tonight!]] Whenever I feel like saying it, I usually use the phrase "I like you a lot." She knows what I mean. In another entry I should write about her feelings on the subject. But for now I'll only say that she equates it with a serious commitment. And that's fine. Love is probably over-stated (though not over-used) anyway. And I'd rather have the thing instead of the word.

On a side note, it occurs to me that I haven't even written about going to Vancouver. I will. And I have pictures.

But on to the house. I'm looking for one. It make sense for me financially, now. And I'm excited about getting a cute Bungalow or Victorian house that I can fix up. (Madision is good at this stuff!) If I'm going to sink so much money into something, it just makes sense to devote some effort to it and experience the joy of creating.

Madison is loving it too. We've had lots of fun picking properties and thinking about furniture and decor. It's all been very domestic actually. Things really came to a head this week when I made an offer on a house and entered into a contract to buy it -- a cute bungalow and an apartment in the back.

Originally it was listed at 169k. I had seen it months ago, but shied away from the price. Then, I saw the listing again and decided to give it a second look. 154k. It was one of those "owner must sell" situations, and I was the first to see the new price. After a second look, comps, a night to sleep on it, making an offer, getting the counter offer, accepting, and signing the contract, everything was going well. Until the home inspection.

My contract stated (thank God) that I was buying the house "as is" but with "right to inspect." If the estimated repairs were more than a thousand dollars, I could back out. Forty thousand is more than one thousand -- and so that's what I did. Thinking about it again, makes me sick. THIS might be the reason my cold has gotten so bad. Stress.

When the inspector was looking at the unit in the back (a two story block unit), he noticed several huge cracks. They started small at the ground and got progressively bigger toward the ceiling -- straight through the blocks. You could see where someone had tried to patch it once, to no avail. There were two cracks to a wall and three walls with those said cracks. As he was pointing it all out to me, I was a little nervous to even be under that roof.

This crack goes all the way through the wall and
it's not the only one.

And you know? That explains why that door was locked when I was looking at the house. I'm such an idiot sometimes.

Anyway, then we get into the main house. He turned on all the faucets before crawling under the house to inspect the crawlspace and said, "give me about 5 minutes before turning them off." About thirty seconds later, he comes running in shouting, "Turn it off! Turn it off!" You KNOW that can't be a good.

To make a long story short, there was raw sewage draining onto the ground under the house. And even worse, after he went back under the house (what a great inspector!), he found that someone had cut through the support beams in the floor to run new pipes. Why would you do that? With that support gone, that side of the house had started to drop and had thus caused the so-called "normal crack in the plaster" in the hallway inside.

What's even better is that the sewage has to flow uphill.

The list goes on, but suffice it to say that I'm back in house-searching mode. Hopefully I can stay at my apartment. Note to self: Don't give written notice that you're terminating your lease before doing the next house inspection. (Even if the house does look really pretty and you already have a contract on it.)

You know what I hate most about journal writing? And really, I think it's the reason I procrastinate so much. (I have so many theories about these things.) It's that there is always (or at least often) so much more to write. So many things to say. Event, dynamics, emotions. I don't want to end this journal now -- but if I don't, it will sit on the back burner again -- as if I'll actually finish it -- for another twenty days.

So, it'll all come out in the wash, as they say.

And as I thought several months ago, I'm back in the journal writing business. Of course, I believed it then, and I believe it now. But since you're smarter than me, you'll probably take it all with a grain of salt. And you should. But wish me luck anyway.