Overload

I should have seen this coming, because it isn't like this kind of thing never happens to me.

I am totally overloaded and realizing I need to find a new equilibrium/pattern/rhythm to work.

Over the past couple months, I've established a pretty good routine for myself. I have a regular way of checking news, blogs and websites for items relevant to the NDY blog - I also have some back-up topics if nothing comes to mind.

Things have been going so swimmingly well that I decided it was time to expand my repertoire. So, first, I started this blog in addition to the NDY blog.

Me being me, I didn't stop there. At least for awhile, until it became entrenched in my work pattern. That would have been prudent. Sensible. It would have been smart.

Nope. I registered with Facebook. There were very good reasons to do that. Disability activists from all over the world network there. It's also very popular at the moment, so if you want to build an organizational presence, it's a place you should go.

I prepared. I read Facebook for Dummies.

I was not prepared for the reality that is Facebook. It is an informational assault on the senses, with little-understood applications being offered to me, a rapidly building list of friends in my network, etc. It is a flood of data - some of it relevant to my work, some of it interesting, some of it personally important because it concerns friends.

To top it off, last weekend, a time I usually spend doing housework, catch-up and some DVR watching, was spent preparing for the Oscar Protest regarding the humanitarian award given to Jerry Lewis.

I have spent a lot of today floundering through the information overkill, trying to figure out what to write here and at my other blog. Finally, now that the day is nearing an end, I've managed to come up with something, which I hope is a step or two higher than gibberish.

As I said, this is not an unfamiliar place for me to be in. When I was younger, it took a lot less than this to overwhelm me - and I would (in a figurative sense) give up, drown, and sink.

But if you've been through this enough times, eventually you find some ways to get back on your game. A few successes help beat off the drowning feeling (mostly).

No doubt this is something that has to do with that particular grouping of assets and deficits that fall into that broad category known as "nonverbal learning disabilities."

To me, it's "business as usual."

Please stick around, though. I plan to stick with this and enjoy the readers who've visited so far. --Stephen