My roommate left for class a few hours ago and I know he’ll be back soon. He’ll nod or briefly say hi as he passes through the room I’m working in. Something will ruffle in the adjacent kitchen. If I listen carefully I’ll hear pantry doors opening closing, microwave buttons beep-beeping, light switches on/off. But in a few minutes the silence will prevail. My roommate will be in his room with the door shut behind him, where he’ll likely remain until morning.

Though our interaction promises to be brief and pleasant, its inevitability—along with my inability to predict precisely when it will occur—renders me unable to function at full-strength capacity in the meantime. That’s because intellectual energy that belongs in my dissertation is wasted trying to anticipate the interruption.

I had the same reaction the other day when our landlord announced he’d be by to fix the sink “sometime after lunch.” All afternoon I just dicked around, vowing to get back to work after he left.

By the time the landlord finally showed up around 7pm, my day was shot. I had rearranged my MP3 collection, caught up on Sox drama and Pats’ offseason losses, and browsed the day’s headlines on non-corporate news sites like RawStory and AlterNet—to find out what had really happened in the world. These accomplishments were of tangential importance, relative to me finishing my dissertation.

It completely screws with my head whenever I know something—anything other than me sitting here in a vacuum, reading and typing—is scheduled to occur in my vicinity in the immediate future. Why am I so distracted by these minor distractions? My roommate is a nice guy. His presence in the home we rent together hasn’t once felt like a nuisance (unlike virtually every other roommate experience I’ve had in life). Nor does the landlord expect the hospitality of a four-star hotel as he fixes my appliances. My anticipation of these mundane events is more disruptive than the moments when they actually occur.

Is this an A.D.D. thing, an Adderall thing, or just further evidence that I’m quirky and completely discombobulated?