I think I have ADD.

In fact, I think I’ve had it all along. For those of you who know me, just stop and think about it for a second. Forget all the political issues surrounding the disorder and just think about what you know about me. And think about what you know of ADD. Now put the two together. Yeah.

I seriously can’t pay attention to anything I do. Every once in awhile I’ll have some kind of break-through for an hour or so when I’m doing something amazingly interesting to me, but for the most part my brain is constantly distracting me, saying things like, “Hey, don’t forget about…” and, “Go check out that website so-and-so told you about,” and, “Did you respond to that email?” and a whole bunch of other things. Simultaneously. Without ceasing.

I’m not saying this in an “Oh, please pity me!” sort of way. I think if I do actually have ADD I’ve gotten along without any kind of medication pretty well, and become a productive member of society, etc. But honestly, do you know anyone who is more constantly distracted than I am? If you do, they probably have ADD. 🙂

You might ask me, “Josh, what’s the point? You’ve grown up with it (or without it if you don’t actually have it) and now you’re a productive member of society, so who cares?” I can only respond by saying, “That’s a good point, but we have to keep in mind that in order to… Hmmm… I’m hungry.”

As you may have heard already, Steph and I went up to San Francisco three days ago to see the Marc Chagall exhibit and spend some time with a couple friends. I have to admit, Chagall’s work is wonderfully emotive, and quite powerful in person. His colors are (usually) wonderfully vibrant, and he has an interesting technique I call the "mental collage" in which he juxtaposes images that don’t seem to be in the same "scene," but are nonetheless part of the same painting. It’s very interesting.

I have to get one thing off my chest, though. You may be surprised by the following statements, considering I’m married to an artist and art lover. They may come across as uncultured, and they may be exactly that. But it’s worth saying.

I saw more floating, rubbery people, and chickens, and goat-cows with fiddles, and bouquets of flowers that day (all represented in various mediums) than I ever thought possible. After thirty years of painting, how could Chagall say, “For my 458th painting I think I’ll paint a chicken, with a woman on it, floating through the sky, with a boquet of flowers obscuring the skyline of Vitebsk! Oh! And a goat with a fiddle!” There. I just made up a new Chagall painting, assuming it hasn’t been done yet. Wait, I think it has.

Honestly though, it doesn’t surprise me that he’s famous. He’s talented. That much is clear. But he also did the one thing that separates famous artists from obscure ones. He picked an easily "trademarkish" subject (or picked from a semi-static list of subjects) and repeated it over and over and over again. The other thing you can do to become a famous artist is pick a style and then randomize subjects, but he seemed to like the first route better, so there you have it. All I know is that I’ll never, in my entire life, be able to make even one painting that is as good as any of his were, so I probably shouldn’t be teasing him. Many of Steph’s students can make better artwork than I can, so I think I’d better shut my trap.

This is why I love geeks. I think the best word to describe a geek is "eager." Eager to what? Well… that all depends on the geek, but they’re eager nonetheless.

Oh, start here for a little bit of back story, if you like.

Stephanie Lewis is my favorite person in the entire world. She has been for quite some time now, actually, but I figured since today was our third wedding anniversary that it’s a sensible time to announce that fact to the world without all my friends retching at the cheesy, mushiness of it all. (Mmmm… mushy cheese…)

When I look at my wedding pictures today, I see a worried, puffy-looking man, clad in white, getting married to my wife. Honestly, I was quite stressed out that day. As August 12th, 2000 approached, I became more and more anxious, both because I really loved Steph and couldn’t wait to be her husband, but also because I had all sorts of odd feelings zooming around in my head. “This is a big deal! Am I really ready for this? Am I sure that I’m ready for a life-long commitment? Maybe I should’ve waited another year…” and so on. To be honest, the wedding day wasn’t that great. But marriage is absolutely wonderful.

It turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life.

I love being married. I can’t stress that enough. I come home at night and Steph is there, and I can talk to her, and have fun with her, and play games and see movies and share life with her, and it just gets better and better every single day. Sure, we have fights sometimes, but I can’t stay mad at her (mostly, she’ll tell you, because I insist on resolving all arguments immediately no matter how inconvenient). She is one of the most loving, giving people I’ve ever met, and the cool part is that she loves me back. And forgives me when I’m stupid. And likes The Simpsons, Cowboy Bebop, Beck, and web design. She even lambasts Microsoft at every chance she gets. What more could I ask for?!?

Steph, it’s been a pleasure being your husband, and I can’t wait to see what the next three, or thirty, or sixty years will bring. I love you.

And please don’t get me anything leather.

I’ve apparently been missing a large chunk of the blog phenomenon by not picking up on this earlier. There are apparently folks who sit around and think up questions somewhere, and then daily post these questions to the web (thus Question of the Day, or QotD for short), and then other bloggers see these questions and post them on their blogs along with actual answers this time, and the cycle goes on and on percolating across all blogs in the universe until the unity of higher blog thought reaches an ultimate pinnacle of spiritual multidimensional existential… well, you get the idea.

I figured that I would defeat the point by making up my own questions. Jaunty!

QoTD: If you were a professional musician and had the ability to be musically super-awesome, what other artist(s) would your music most sound like?

This isn’t to imply that you would be unoriginal, but I think we can all tell that if we made music there would be strong influences from this, that, and the other thing. So who are they? Me? I’d be a mixture of Beck, Daft Punk, and sometimes Harrod and Funck. Oh, and Nintendo (somewhat like Freezepop–be sure to check out their song T DJ). Seriously. It would be wild stuff. I have no idea how I would get it to fit together.

Oh! I almost forgot to mention that part of the point of QotD is that you respond in the Peanut Gallery. So go forth and fill mein database, freunde!

I got a new t-shirt tonight. I may not look too great in green, but it’s hard to pass this up.