The Americans with Disabilities Act turns 20 today! Thanks to the ADA, Americans with disabilities enjoy better access to buildings, transportation, telecommunication, employment, and education. It paved the way for IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which enabled me to graduate from college.  There’s still a long way to go before we as a society achieve the four goals of the ADA –  equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency — but it’s clear we’ve come a long way. I’d like to point out   read more

I’ve been reading blogging by Scicurious (formerly of Neurotopia at Science Blogs, now at called either “Neurotic Psychology” or “Scicurious 221;, I’m not sure which. She’s a post-doc in neuroscience, and she has posted in the past about various psychoactive medications and how they work.    She writes about the two major classes of ADHD drugs, Amphetamine, and Methylphenidate, as well as SSRI’s.  If you’re on any of these meds you should check out her posts.   read more

A fellow dysgraphic named Hannah recently commented on my post about dysgraphia and X-Acto knives.  She’s a costume designer who struggles with drawing, but manages hand-stitching and cutting without too much difficulty.  It got me thinking about how important it is to have the right tools when you’re trying to work around something like dysgraphia. For instance, I’ve known for years that I write much MUCH better with certain writing implements.  I need to use a soft #2 pencil, made of wood and graphite.  I can’t use those plastic-y #2 pencils (someone once told me they   read more

I don’t know why, but I love math jokes.  I laughed at all the math jokes in Futurama, even though they were written by PhD math geeks and even my husband (who has been known to do math in his sleep.  For real) didn’t get most of them.  Maybe it’s that whole thing where humor makes a profoundly terrifying subject — like death, or war, or arithmetic — less frightening. All I know is, I LOL’d at this xkcd comic, even though long division was the single most horribly traumatic “learning̶ 1; experience of my life:   read more

About six months ago I wrote here and at Well-Ordered about a very nasty shock I received at the dentist: a whopping SEVEN $#%^&@ING CAVITIES.  Twice as many cavities as I’d had in my adult life thus far.  All of them between my teeth. Getting those filled was no picnic, I assure you. The culprit, it turned out, was my Vyvanse.  ADHD drugs, like many anti-depressants, and many allergy meds, and many athsma medications, can dry out your mouth something serious. Without saliva, your mouth isn’t able to defend itself from teeth-eating bacteria.  Teeth-eating bacteria cause cavities   read more

One of the lesser known Dyscalculia Happy Fun Features is that we often struggle with sports.  We can’t remember rules, or plays, or what side of the field we’re supposed to be on.  While it’s been years since my last gym class, THANK THE GODS, I recently encountered this again when watching a World Cup game. I’m from that generation of kids who grew up playing soccer (I was terrible, thank you).  Thanks to us, and to succeeding generations, we are finally able to get the occasional World Cup game on broadcast TV in this country.  When I watched the USA v. England game last   read more

I haven’t been posting a lot lately.  Partly this is because of the amount of time I’ve had to spend reading job listings, filling out applications, tweaking resumes, and trying to write cover letters that aren’t don’t sound like total BS. Partly, it’s because I’ve just been too depressed.  I feel like if I write about what my life has bee like lately, I’d just be whining, and I should be trying to be chipper and cheerful and all that crap. But then I realized, this is a blog about adult learning disabilities.  Life with adult LD sucks sometimes.  And seldom   read more

The short version: I’m still looking. The long version: Well … A few weeks back I wrote a post about taking a math test for a job I applied for.  I guess I’ve been so busy tossing resumes into a black hole that I forgot to post that I apparently passed it. I’m not sure how I managed it, and a big part of me feels like there must be some mistake.  It certainly helps that it was multiple choice and we were allowed the use of calculators.  I think it also helps that my ADD is under control, so I could focus on carefully matching each number as I put them into the calculator   read more

Last week, I wrote about how I had “virtuously 221; cut my fat intake, with disastrous results.  My trainer/personal therapist told me to eat more fat, especially at lunch.  So I decided to give it a try. I immediately felt better.  On the first day. I had more energy, less fatigued, and was not tempted to gorge on cookies in the evening, a bad habit which has bee creeping up on me in the last several weeks.  I’ve lost about half of the three or four pounds I gained.  Even my seasonal allergies are better, in spite of the evil trees outside my house continuing to bloom shamelessly   read more

I have been informed that my diet does not contain enough fat.Seriously.  I’m an American.  Who doesn’t eat enough fat. Obviously I am a commie pinko traitor who hates all that we stand for in this country.I learned this after complaining to my physical therapist/trainer today that I’m gaining weight.   I was frustrated, because I had recently added an extra half-hour of cardio onto my workouts.  The extra cardio made me exhausted later in the day unless I ate more, but it seemed like no matter how much I ate, I was always ravenous.My trainer asked me to describe my diet.    read more