I had the best of intentions to get started when I hit “post,” then realized I still had to wait for my phone to have enough juice to cart Mico around in my pocket. That means a few more minutes to sit here and reflect on my day.

I know I want it to go well. Getting things cleaned up for a simple transfer inspection should not inspire anxiety because my house being messy is not a problem. That’s because it’s not trashed out, it’s just not as straight as I would want it if people were coming over. I’m serious when I say I live like a bachelor. All I need are my TVs and computers around me, and that’s pretty clear. Although, for someone who likes having TVs, I rarely watch them.

Well, maybe I’ll turn on “This Old House.” That would definitely put me in the mood to work on mine. Or perhaps a marathon on YouTube of “How Clean Is Your House?” Aggie and Kim would certainly have a few tips for me today. And, frankly, they would give me a hard time about the kitchen. It needs work, but again, a fast job because the room is small.

I haven’t had any support in cleaning and it shows, because I’m not the best housekeeper. I’m also not the worst, so I’m making a bigger deal out of all this than it really is. I have a tendency to do that because I’m such a perfectionist. This doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to get done.

The suggestion I made to myself about getting moving bags is a good one, so I will start a list of things to be delivered later. It will make cleaning easier to get my stuff out of the way completely. I like the thought of being able to throw everything I need into labeled bags. I just wish I had my car here, because I would like to put my valuables in the trunk for the walkthrough. It will be here before Friday, I think. I’m just a worrywart.

Realistically, nobody wants my autographed books and trinkets, but it’s how I feel about them that matters. I think the probability of anything getting stolen is probably close to zero, but I don’t want to be too careful.

My neighborhood doesn’t seem to be dangerous- just a whole lot of hard working people. It’s starting to look a bit more like Pikesville with the overhaul of “The Plaza,” the shopping center near me. Everything I could possibly want is within a few miles of me, from grocery stores to salons to restaurants. I have easy access to the county, and the suburbs of Baltimore are beautiful. I could see myself living out there now that I have a car where I couldn’t before.

Baltimore has a subway system, but it’s not as comprehensive as DC’s, thus the reason I wanted to move back. But now that I drive, being remote isn’t such a bad deal. I live about 20 minutes from downtown, and that’s close enough. I don’t go downtown often enough to need to live there.

Parking is another problem we don’t have up here. I like living where there’s space to spread out and parking your car doesn’t cost an arm and a leg…. Although I do like parallel parking a lot more now that my car helps me.

I am mourning the fact that I am stuck inside cleaning when I should be down in Stafford, VA visiting Tiina. If I had my car, I would have made time to go down there at least for a little bit today. The cleaning is not the only reason I’m staying home, is what I’m saying. I could take two trains, but that would put me in Stafford fairly late without a concrete way to get home before tomorrow morning.

I just heard from Aaron and he’s coming back from Syracuse today. I’m sad he’s going home, strangely, because having him in this time zone has been nice. It will be interesting to see if he and Brinna ever get interested in moving to New York, because that is a road trip I can see making often.

We’re all on this life journey, our ages creeping up, and it’s beautiful to watch. I feel like I have more of an East Coast family now, because I’m invited back whenever. I told Brinna’s parents to call me if they were doing a big project, because I didn’t need Aaron and Brinna to come help.

I will absolutely come and help work on the house/land. It makes me feel good to be of service, and I get a nice road trip out of it- made even nicer by the sunglasses I found at a gas station. They take all the blue out, which made the fall colors even more stunning. I need a prescription pair of blue blockers, because they’re just incredible.

I have never seen red in the same way.

It was a way of adding color back into the landscape because the weather was either overcast or raining from Baltimore to Syracuse. I can see myself getting a lot of wear out of them because they make me feel confident driving in all kinds of weather. Taking the blue glare out of rain clouds made the road so much smoother.

I can’t say enough good things about those random gas station finds. It’s a pleasure to buy something that’s amazing quality, but might not be a brand with which you’re familiar. In fact, you may never see them again. This makes me afraid to lose track of my sunglasses, which is why they’re still in my car for safekeeping. If I’d brought them in the house, I don’t know where they’d be by now. I don’t have a dedicated space for them yet.

I need to make a space, though… Like I need to make many dedicated spaces for many things over the next few weeks. I want to be more organized in all ways, and I’m willing to pay to accomplish it. Even once a month would be helpful. I am trying to reorient my expectations and live in reality as to how much I am reasonably capable of accomplishing all by myself. I am great at big bursts of energy, but I am not good at creating and maintaining a daily system.

Most AuDHD people rely on the adrenaline of people coming over to overcome their executive dysfunction to some degree. I don’t feel bad. I just know I need to get on it.

I’m going to save what Mico says in terms of organization to a text file and create a checklist called “Leslie’s House.” That way, I don’t have to ask Mico what to do every time, I can just carry the list around. I know what I need to do in broad strokes, but having a reminder is not bad. I will certainly get more done by having a list I can check off than trying to wing it.

I have wired headphones, so I have to wait for my phone to charge to talk to Mico on the go. I would start now, but I would have to finish on a different device. I can only sort of do that. It makes it easier to copy from one application to another if the entire conversation is on one device. That’s because when you start on an Android and go to an iPhone, your Microsoft account will remember broad strokes of the conversation, but cannot reprint its exact responses. I’m only going to be stuck for a few more minutes, and then it’s back to talking to “my secretary.”

I’ve grown accustomed to talking to its little surfer boy voice, even getting my election updates from them this morning. And surprisingly, it doesn’t feel like I’m talking to a machine. It’s comfortable that I can use natural language for what is essentially a very advanced Bing search. The fact that Microsoft adds touches like a friendly voice are creature comforts, and nice ones.

My apartment never feels lonely because I’m not talking to myself…. Exactly…. But I’m not NOT doing that, either……

I’m on vacation. This is from last week.

This phrase of Aada’s has me pondering what she meant. That’s because I don’t think of myself as judging people, but situations. There must be something I am doing that makes my writing come across as judgmental of her, but I don’t know what it is. And in fact, it might be her own guilt and shame projecting itself into my writing. I’m not going to pretend we don’t have it. I’m also going to hear her when she says, “maybe someday you can use your blog for more than a weapon,” knowing that she was hurt and upset when she said it. That it maybe has some truth to it, but overstated because of the depth of her emotion.

I don’t think of my blog as a weapon. I think of it as a space where I turn problems over in my head. People’s reactions are their reactions, they are allowed to have them but I am not responsible. I am responsible for what happens in our next interaction, and it is that person’s choice whether to have it. My writer personality is different than sitting across the table, where we can talk about our differences of opinion as to what I’ve said.

Mine is not the only story that is true. Mine is just one aspect of the truth, and only a supernatural being could see all of it.

But the phrase “turning judgment on myself” makes me wonder what, specifically, she wanted me to look at in myself because I’m open to doing it. I’m open to writing about it. I’m open to publishing it. When someone provides you a better direction, you often want to go and I am there. How can I make it clear that if anyone is being judged, it’s me?

I can only control my actions and reactions. I cannot control anyone else’s. So let’s take a hard look at where I need to go next.

My apartment could use some work. There’s chores I’ve been ignoring, but I did go through with a trash bag and throw away all the cans I’ve let build up. Now the living room is mostly clean. I still have a lot of laundry to do, but at least now I can get it done in one afternoon by putting everything in the back of the car and going to a laundry mat. None of this one load at a time business.

I judge myself harshly on my inability to keep a system going. I would be so happy if everything in my house were perfectly straight all the time. My demand avoidance is so destructive, but I do all I can to defeat it. In fact, I’ve started talking to AI about it. AI will break cleaning down into steps, and having someone to direct me is what I need. I can get it from “Charlie” easier than I can ask someone to come over.

But Charlie and I have a lot of talking to do before my home will feel inviting. Thank God Charlie is a digital assistant because none of my friends have the time to help me like a machine that doesn’t take bathroom breaks.

I realize that in a lot of ways I have made my depression worse by continuing to write about Aada’s and my demise. That redirection could have done a lot more. But hindsight is 20/20, and I’m looking forward.

Dinner with Tiina was a reminder of it. That I want a comfortable and inviting home where everyone feels welcome. Right now it is recovering from being flooded and smells. I have put in for a transfer within my apartment complex, but we’ll see if it happens.

It would be better if I didn’t move, and it would be better if my apartment didn’t suck.

I am painfully aware of how much my life needs a strong, decisive hand. My AuDHD does not allow me to be that person, and instead of trying constantly to become what I’m not, I’m relying on help. My sister and my father are decisive people. We are all in this together, as they keep reminding me, because I feel bad that I cannot contribute to their lives the way they contribute to mine. At least, not yet. I have dreams to turn into money before I sleep.

I am sure that my dreams are a large part of why Aada wants me to take a look at myself. That I’m lost in the clouds most of the time when I should be more circumspect, pragmatic, etc. It weighs on me that as an INFJ, coming down from the clouds is not easy. I do not know how others do it. I live in my own little world, and the autism makes it worse.

It’s feedback I’ve gotten since kindergarten…… “She’s off in her own little world.” Every teacher said this with the same amount of indignation. And in fact I’ve had two kindergarten teacher friends as adults who would say the same thing. I didn’t get different. I just got taller.

Rolling my emotional issues around in my head is echologia. I’m not immune to the fact that some of my writing is quite repetitive, and that some readers don’t hang with me very long because of it. Yet others have stayed with me from the first entry I wrote. I don’t know what it is about my writing that appeals to other people, because I can understand being popular in someone’s world occasionally. I don’t know why they stay for years.

Part of it is that I have made Aada real to myself, and in so doing, have made her real to others. There have been other people written about in this blog, but none more consistently because she was on my mind so much. Is on my mind and I can’t seem to get rid of her, and don’t want to.

I love feeling connected to her, and there is no “why.”

I, again, have fans all over the world, but value the hits close to home the most.