In my mind, I am a worldly, tuxedo-wearing, international man of mystery, jetting to and fro, blending seamlessly with my surroundings … by all appearances a high-class, streetwise native of whatever far-flung, exotic locale in which I find myself.

In reality, I rarely leave the house.

But I have a passport. Oh yes, a passport. A passport with which I could gain entry to any country of my choosing. France, for example.

It was in December of 2001 when I secured my first and only passport. Somehow, despite being a bona fide adventurous, carpe diem kinda guy, I had managed to make it through more than three decades on earth without needing one. Embarrassing … but I’m also the guy who grew up 250 miles away from New York City and never got there until I was 25 years old.

Truth is, until I reached my 30s, I had no interest in going anywhere other than Florida, Mexico or the Carribean. (This should offer some insight as to why, when I step outside lately, I say things out loud to myself like, “Oh yeah! Snow and ice, baby! This is great! Let’s live in New England! BRILLIANT IDEA, DUMB ASS!)

But then, in early 2002, I got my big chance to finally experience Europe. France, to be exact. And not just France, but Paris. Gay Paris, as they say. Though I’m not gay. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

My brother was, at the time, living in Paris, and Wonder Woman and I had made plans to experience the city with both him and his Parisian then-girlfriend, and how cool would that have been? Our own native tour guide … whose family also has a home in the beautiful coastal region of Brittany, to which we had planned to travel by train, and can you even imagine the unbridled awesomeness?

And then the sky cracked open and the hand of god reached down and bitch-slapped me with a pink slip two weeks before our departure, and we had to bail. But, hey, no problem, we were still young and childless and renting instead of owning and there would be plenty of time to travel and experience the world before we got bogged down in parenthood and home-“ownership” (Ha! Like we own this place! BWAHAHAHAHA!), right?

And here it is, eight years later, and do you see the passport shown above? Let me share with you how many customs stamps appear on the pages contained therein: ZERO. ZILCH. NADA. NONE.

But today, my friends … today, I finally got to use my passport. Yes, that’s right: the very official-looking woman in charge needed to see it … and being the experienced world traveler that I am, well, I suavely and nonchalantly slid it across the desk so that she could peruse it and confirm that the dashing man in front of her — by all appearances, a handsome, 007-like spy — was, in fact, who he said he was.

And then she issued me my replacement library card.

I had kept thinking I was going to find my wallet, which has been missing since last weekend. It’s gone missing before … or, rather, I’ve lost it before … because that’s just something I have a tendency to do with great frequency (see previous entry about ADD). But then I got an email from my bank that contained the “site-key unlock code” that I had apparently requested at 11:31 p.m. Wednesday night … except that I wasn’t doing any online banking at 11:31 p.m. on Wednesday night. Fuck.

Fortunately, the bottom-feeding scumbag who found my wallet and tried to do a little online banking in my name was unsuccessful. (Unfortunately, a.) that person now knows where I live, b.) I have to replace all my shit, and c.) I can’t replace the little pink tissue-paper heart that Wonder Woman gave me, like, 11 years ago, on which she wrote “My heart is always with you.” That last one really pisses me off. Die, wallet-stealer. Die.)

But I got to use my passport. Now if only I could get to Europe. *sigh*

[On a totally unrelated note: I don't ask for much, right? So do me a solid: go here and vote for me in Babble's Top 50 Mommy Bloggers poll. Yes, I know I'm not a mommy. All the more reason to go vote for me. All you have to do is click on the thumbs-up thing next to my name. We're talking a total of, like, 10 seconds. Basically, if you don't do it, you're a lazy asshole. And a puppy will probably die because of it. Nice going.]

Today sucked. Here’s some cool looking…

Shortly after I turned 30 (you know, roughly a decade ago… and, yeah, there’s a thought that really cheers me up, thanks!), I climbed into bed one night with a book that I had seen lying around the house for at least a year or so: “Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder from Childhood through Adulthood.” I assumed that it was just another of the many clinical books that Wonder Woman had accumulated as a result of her social-work career, but I had been on the receiving end of a number of ADD jokes over the years, so I decided to give it a look.

When I reached the bottom of the first page, I turned to her and said, “How long have you known I have this?”

“Pretty much since we first met,” she answered.

She hadn’t wanted to shove it down my throat. Figured I’d get to it when I was ready. You can see why someone might fall in love with a woman like that.

Prior to actually researching it, I had assumed that the sum total of having ADD meant that one was daydreamy and easily distracted from the task at hand … kind of like a cat who sees a shiny object. It turns out that there are actually 20 far more varied characteristics that serve as a criterion for the diagnosis, and damned if I don’t possess all 20.

(Side note: I Photoshopped away the wrinkles under my eyes because I am a vain bastard who can’t handle my own aging and mortality. Thank you.)

I come from a blue-collar New England family that historically frowned upon using half an aspirin to relieve the pain of a severed limb, so taking medication for a mental-health issue was right up there with setting myself aflame and naked bungee jumping into a pit of boiling oil on my list of “Things For Which I Possess A Natural Inclination.” In fact, having a mental-health issue in the first place wasn’t necessarily embraced in the ivory towers of my upbringing, so it took me more than a year to get from the point of having my ADD epiphany to actually seeking professional help.

Ultimately, I was prescribed Wellbutrin — though I initially had no intention of getting the prescription filled, let alone popping pills … but Wonder Woman convinced me that it was worth a try, since I could always stop taking it if I decided that it wasn’t working or that I didn’t like it. Thus, I gave it a whirl, fully expecting to feel absolutely no difference in my overall mood, demeanor and ability to cope.

So imagine my surprise when it greatly diminished the extent to which I am an irritable, easily agitated, brooding, moody asshole. (And right now, anyone who has known me only during my Wellbutrin-taking days and is learning that I’ve stopped taking it is like, “Fuck, really? Daaaaaaamn, dude, I don’t think we can see each other anymore.”)

Those 20 characteristics I mentioned? My son seems to possess many of them himself, and has also displayed some other sensory, emotional, sleep and mood-regulation issues, above and beyond what one would typically consider “normal.” I have written about some of them before.

Fortunately, he is excelling at school, has lots of friends, and successfully participates in a number of extracurricular activities. (During a parent/teacher conference that we attended just before the holidays, we shared with his teacher some of the challenges we’ve experienced with him, and she basically reacted as though we were talking about someone else … which we consider a good thing, and a testament to just how hard he works to put his best foot forward when he’s out in “the world.”)

Unfortunately, however, he has remained prone to having major meltdowns over seemingly minor issues, and though the frequency of these meltdowns has diminished with age, our concern about them has magnified due to the fact that he has become self-aware enough to browbeat himself about his failure to avoid having them and his inability to calm himself down when they do occur.

He also has shown a tendency to get upset due to certain audio stimuli. For example, if he’s had a particularly rough day and it is time to bathe, the noise of the water from the showerhead hitting the tub can bring him to tears.

Which brings us to The Mysterious Holistic Treatment to which I’ve alluded in recent posts. I shall now let Wonder Woman explain further, via an excerpt from an email she wrote to our families about the process:

About a year ago, maybe more, Jon and I decided to stop blaming ourselves for being crappy parents and realized that we had some real concerns about Zan that, had they been medical , we’d have done something about already, but because they were harder to figure out, we were instead doing a lot of rationalizing and hoping that they would go away. Unfortunately, that strategy didn’t work, and although some of the issues have improved with age, most still remain in a more six-year-old version. So, we started exploring some options and talking to professionals about ways to help him. He was asking for it in the best way he could and we needed to do something.

Our search led us to AIT (Auditory Integration Training). The best website to explore if interested is http://www.aitinstitute.org.

Now, if you’re so inclined, you can go to that site and get a more professional, in-depth look at the process and all that it entails. The bottom line for us is that the treatment has been found to help rectify the issues with which both Zan and I have struggled, and because I believed we’d have a greater chance of getting him to cooperate with the process if I undertook it with him, I did so. (And please note that, although autism is one of the primary conditions for which AIT is widely used, neither of us is autistic … although I’m an excellent driver.)

The AIT site can give you the long version of how the treatment is conducted and what it purportedly does, but here’s the short version as pertains to my main man and me: last month, Zan and I each spent 30 minutes, twice per day, for 10 days, listening to music fed through a machine that modifies the audio output in such a fashion that the sounds hitting your ears help retrain the way your brain processes auditory input.

By the end of the treatments, we were seeing some definite improvements with Zan … but research shows that the short-term gains are generally replaced by a pronounced regression into the undesirable behavior for three to six months before the long-term benefits manifest … and, holy motherfucking sweet sister mercy in a corset, the regression is in full swing. But you probably know that by the way the earth has been shaking around dinner and/or bedtime every night for the past couple weeks. Sorry ’bout that.

Based on the regressive behavior Zan is demonstrating, I’m led to believe that my moodiness, short fuse and general disgruntlement are the result of a similar regression in response to the treatment, and that the cessation of my Happy Pills is exacerbating that regression … but the cessation of the Happy Pills also was one of the reasons I subjected myself to the process, so it’s kind of a necessary evil.

So there you have it. Funny? Not so much. Entertaining? Perhaps, though I doubt it. Every now and then, however, I need to use this blog to document and process things rather than to just make an ass out of myself for all of the Internet to laugh at, so I hope you’ll bear with me.

In related news: Thank you to everyone for your supportive and encouraging comments. I had no idea that my readership was so chock full of similarly fucked up individuals. It’s nice to know I’m a lightning rod for the anxious and the depressed … I think.

This here is the Earducator, which is the device used for the AIT sessions that Zan and I…