Living in Blinderville: Growing up with Asperger's

alright people, lets not dwell on the umbrella. we are approximately a hundred years away from this situation actually being relevant. and shannon and i have the reason for this: a mild case of asperger's.

it's remarkable to think that my interactions with members of the opposite sex could be categorized by a clinical diagnosis but i think at times its true. we were reminiscing about my younger years, and the sheer ridiculousness of my behaviour in certain situations, and there was almost no way to account for my reactions without them being attributed them to some sort of mild disorder.

instead of offering up the best example of my social ineptitude (which is hard to pick and would inevitably be embarassing) i am just going to give you a recent example. picture the scene: james' 30th birthday party. there were loads of people, most of whom we (shannon, daniel, paula and i) didn't know, so we were doing our best to mingle. sleo's eye was caught by one of james' friends and they immediately hit it off. a couple of people mentioned to me that the guy had a girlfriend and i promptly tucked that gem of information away into storage. as the night was winding down we all left and daniel decided that we needed to go for chinese on spadina. we didn't want to walk so daniel, paula and i jumped into a cab and said g'night to shannon and her new friend.

only then, in the cab as we were driving away, was i prompted by daniel to inform shannon of the girlfriend, so i sent what may go down in history as my worst text of all time: he has a girlfriend. meet us for chinese.

i think shannon was so confused that she couldn't be mad. and thus began the mission to figure out just how my brain really works. why didn't i tell her about the girlfriend when i heard about it? why would i leave her in a potentially awkward situation? why would i send a text, almost immediately after leaving her in said awkward situation, exposing the girlfriend? and why would i ditch her to get chinese, and then tell her to come get chinese?

i had no satisfactory answers. i would never try to do anything malicious but my actions, or inactions, could have potentially led to some very hurt feelings.

last night we were mulling this over and it was decided that my brain just doesn't process information the way a normal person's does. key bits of information get lost and my attention is typically focused on bizarre details ... or nothing at all. as a result i am typically surprised when i debrief with people after my nights out because, for all intents and purposes, we could have been in totally different places. and there is a chance that i have missed out on some decent opportunities for fun.

so shannon and i are working on a new game plan. it involves taking the blinders off and thinking about other ways a situation could be interpreted, apart from the first conclusion that i would normally jump to. the plan goes into action saturday night so i'll keep you all informed.

Shana Tova

i've been in a contemplative mood for the past few days. its probably not such a bad thing since i am currently in the ten days between rosh hashanah and yom kippur, and i am supposed to be thinking about all the bad things i did last year. its not a fire and brimstone sort of deal (or not the way my rabbi laid it out on saturday) but more of a "lets try to do better next year" sort of thing. i'm comfortable with that.

the problem is that i don't really feel bad enough about the stuff i did last year. my siblings and i sat around the kitchen table on saturday morning running through the ten commandments, comparing our sins, and even though i broke a fair number of them i don't feel as bad as i should, which is why i've been mulling over the whole thing. i didn't murder anyone and i didn't build any idols and i didn't really commit adultery. and the other ones are really hard not to break. i mean, who has time to keep the sabbath day holy anymore? and stealing clothes from your little sister ... is that really stealing? i guess the lord will decide on the judgment day but i'm fairly confident that i won't be smote this year ... pride before the fall???

anyway, the weekend was pretty good. good food, good company, i got a good haircut and there was a pretty decent shofar blowing (minus the tekiah gedolah which was kinda balls). and i have decided that not being recognized is both a blessing and a curse. it is a bit awkward when you say hello to someone who has, literally, known you since birth and they don't know who you are but, at the same time, i got to avoid talking to loads of people that i didn't want to speak to because they didn't recognize me! and although i find it a bit unnerving when people tell me that i don't look like anyone in my immediate family i take comfort in the pictures of my maternal grandmother who i am a mini-clone of. at least i know who my mother is! (just joking pops!).

i went to the red hot chili peppers concert last night with melissa. i wasn't expecting much as i had heard mixed reviews from people who had seen them before but i was very pleasantly surprised. they put on a great show and even though i tend not to like large venues it was really fun.

i think i am going to go shower and get ready for bed. i want to get a really good sleep tonight. i keep having weird dreams about people that i don't really want to dream about, in situations that i don't really want to be in, and then i wake up all in a state. and tomorrow i'm supposed to run with shannon and then go out for a drink after. as shannon put it "shit yo, i got me a burberry brolly comin my way." here's hoping!