Saturday, May 30, 2009
Discovering the Obvious
In the past week, I've finally noticed two things that have been right in front of me all along.
- After a separation of about 10 months, I'm seeing my old friend Ritalin again. I used Ritalin every day for 13 years. One of the things that I was never able to work around was that, when I would take a full dose (two five-milligram pills), there was always a 15-30 minute period where I struggled to focus on whatever I was doing because the Ritalin had kicked up my heart-rate significantly and given me minor stomach spasms. This week, the obvious hit me - break up dosage. If I take start with one pill then take another pill about 30 minutes later, I don't get that nasty feeling at all. And that in turn makes it easier for me to focus on and/or enjoy whatever I'm doing.
- In the year plus that I've lived in Framingham, I've struggled to find a place to write. I always knew that I needed to find some place other than my apartment where I could sit and do creative writing, but everywhere I looked was just wrong. All the nearby Starbucks locations are too busy and don't have any good writing surface other than a sparse offering of tables that are usually taken. The diners are all small, noisy, and the kind of places where doing any writing gets you looks from the patrons and questions from the waitresses (I am deeply fond of these diners, though). At some point this week, I was driving down Route 9, something I do at least once a day. My mind and my eyes were wandering at a stoplight and I found myself looking at a coffee shop. Now, I'd seen that coffee shop every day for a year, and had noticed it enough to remember it's name. But I never thought about it beyond that until this week. Today, I finally went into the place and was really impressed. Granted, Saturday afternoon isn't a perfect sample for atmosphere or crowd levels, but there is a TON of writing surface. I immediately became affectionate and possessive and decided that, not only would I stop going to other coffee places in Framingham and give this place all my business regardless of whether or not I planned to sit and write, but that I would start going there weekday mornings on the way to my shrink's office so I could give them more of my money and therefore help keep the place open (it's an independent store).
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