I get bored ...

Maybe I try to write something every day for a while? Let's talk about neurodiversity today.

Hey, yo.

I know everybody’s talking about a different person with the initials KH who raised $100 million and locked up the number of needed delegates to run for president of these United States, yesterday. But I posted to my SubStack for the first time in forever and got five new followers. That’s pretty good, right?

Let’s talk about the NDistinct Chatter name for a bit.

As a writer, I both think I’m pretty great and also nothing special. When I was writing a column for the Bismarck Tribune (you should subscribe to their newspaper, if you haven’t already, and tell ‘em ol’ Kelly Hagen sent ya — no one remembers me, so prepare for an awkward silence), I got more positive response from readers than negative. Folk would tell me things like how they looked forward to reading my column every week, or that I was really weird but enjoyable, or they didn’t know why they liked my stuff but they did. One person called me “the common man’s Clay Jenkinson,” which I kind of took as saying, “like Clay Jenkinson, except not smart.”

It’s never been easy to pay me a compliment. My therapist once told me I’m distrustful of anyone who’s nice to me, because what are they really up to?

I’m a monster.

What I didn’t know then, a quarter-score and seven years ago, was that I’m a little more than a lot neurodiverse. Why did I not know that, then and there? I didn’t even know what neurodiversity was, 12 years ago. Did anybody?

Yeah, probably people smarter than me. Like Clay Jenkinson. I just thought I was bad at making eye contact or hitting deadlines.

Around 2019, I was assessed with adult ADHD. By a professional, not one of those surveys you take on Instagram to try and sell you a subscription to a meme that reminds you to drink more water. I went on meds, I started seeing counselors, and was making some pretty great progress in becoming an adult human being.

Then 2020 happened.

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

I don’t have to tell you what happened in March of 2020, probably. COVID happened, and all the things went wild for everyone. At a time when I was finally figuring out routine and executive functioning for dummies, all the rules went out the window. We weren’t leaving our houses, and some of us were wearing masks, and others were complaining about masks and being expected to not cough on strangers at the supermarket. Toilet paper was hard to find. People were working from home. Then they weren’t. Then they were again. Sometimes you’re at home working, sometimes you’re at an office with your door shut, working. It was discombobulating.

I lost my mom during COVID, to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. There’s nothing funny about that. But, like they say, you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. And I figured out pretty quickly after my mom, who was my North Star, left this mortal coil that I was feeling incredibly lost without her constant guidance and needling for me to show up for people, be kind to everyone, including myself, and always, always return your mother’s phone calls so she isn’t losing sleep, worried you’re dead in a ditch, somewhere.

That was three years ago, and try as I might, I can’t seem to get solid ground under my feet. I went through a major depression for more than a year after my mom’s passing. And every time I start to see daylight, something happens in my life that hurts my feelings and I obsess over it and isolate myself away from the world, and fall deeper into the abyss of my mind.

…

Whoa, that got dark.

Anyway, a year or more ago, I was watching a lot of Marvel movies, with the captions on because I’m in my 40s now and I can’t always hear the words that the superheroes are saying to their contemporaries in between all the explosions and half the universe dying when Thanos snaps his fingers. (Oh, sorry. Spoiler alert.)

To quote Wolverine: “I am inevitable.”

You know what term shows up a lot in closed-captioning? “(Indistinct chatter.)” And I thought to myself: That’d make for a great name for a podcast!

It certainly would, and I’m probably the 80,000th human being to think that same thought, because there is no shortage of properties named Indistinct Chatter in the world today. Probably. It’s been a couple years since I googled it to find out, for sure.

But nobody had yet thought to take the “I” out of Indistinct and capitalize the “ND.” (Probably because they don’t live in North Dakota or aren’t neurodiverse, or they’re not huge fans of Neil Diamond.)

So, yeah. I pounced on it. Also, grabbed up “ndchatter,” which makes less sense, but it’s shorter. And everybody loves shorter.

One thing I’ve learned from the five or more books I’ve read/listened to on Audible about ADHD is that boredom is our kryptonite. And I’m suddenly a little bored with this long and winding road of a narrative I’m telling. So, here’s me wrapping it up for now, and look for the Part Two of this story. Which could either show up in your in-boxes later tonight or 14 years from now.

I’m unpredictable, like that. Also, breezy. Always breezy.