I was reading about Steve jobs great biography about him and I was struck by his focus on design elegant simplicity minimalism he believed that design matters appearance matters the outside matters as much as the inside which is why I’m wearing a clean shirt and clean underwear okay clean shirt.

Maybe it’s me it feels like designs becoming more important than practicality and since those of us who have ADHD are in the minority a lot of things are not designed with us in mind in the first place and then they’re becoming increasingly impractical.  I mean look at this DVD player can you see where the buttons are where’s the power button? where any of the buttons?  where is the grounding wire?

okay all of our electronic gadgets are like this I end up in the TV room tapping on these black cubes praying

light goes on and it takes a while if I’d like to come on so now I’m sitting here tap electronic devices used to have buttons with different shapes and different colors green red you can figure it out you didn’t need to get out your cell phone and turn on the flashlight function and find anything by the way look at this this is my cell phone covered in Lego I never lose this and when I’m bored it can play with it I can add more my son left a lot of Lego in the house a car I could make a like a car phone but I could build an entire even the microwave oven and why are they all different every house okay no power and what does this mean min max light big flag wha-hoo what.

What frustrates me is when form supersedes function for example I’m in town for a meeting I’m early which I always am and I grab a bite at a cafe where the food is pricey due to the ambulance I’m sitting there surrounded by people who look like they’re from an ad in Vanity Fair and they’re ordering cranapple raspberry with a twist of guava and Chinese gooseberry and the I don’t know what no I asked to have root beer yeah sorry now the drink comes in a fancy cup with this shirt little straw sticking out the top and I’m sipping away and do you see what happened the bubbles of carbonation had kept it afloat and then it was like periscope down and I know like I got a bee in my mouth frustrating.

When I looked at the straw I realized it was actually a regular straw that had been cut at a jaunty designer angle like bad why was it to reduce the number of straws they could get to it’s to save money not in a place like this it wasn’t no it was to look cool yeah I know it doesn’t work and it could poke my eye oh and of all this is that when you have adult ADHD it’s enough of a struggle and so you don’t need extra challenges do what works for you even if it’s not particularly elegant or it doesn’t look beautiful simple example our Apple remote which is designed to slide between cushions and disappear on you I got some ugly but bright gold ribbon from the basement a colorful red duct tape to hold it together and a red elastic so it doesn’t leave me go all over the remote and people come to the house we will see that and they go oh that’s a smart idea that first Oh is wow that’s ugly and the second is Oh the first one is form ooh that’s an ugly form the second part is the function oh that would actually work we should do that you should do that you should do whatever works for you do what works for you forget form focus on function because you have ADHD you’ve already drawn the short straw I miss the straw going up my nose it added a little sparkle ooh of make my eyes water that’s very nice.