Introduction

This is my first ever post on my first ever blog. I feel like it should be a more momentous occasion, but since pretty much everyone and their gran has been blogging for years, it's old news. A lot of my friends have blogs and a lot of people I know from the internet and enjoy staring at occasionally on Twitter have blogs, and while I'm pretty sure I'm never going to compete with, say, Hyperbole and a Half, or Steam Me Up Kid, what the hell. Might as well let it all out.

Here are a few fun facts. I have OCD. People tend to know a little about that. I also have hypermobility in my joints. Basically, my mind wants to control everything, but my body is incapable of following those orders. My girlfriend just watches, mouth agape in wonder, as I fail to complete even the simplest of motor control tasks. Pouring is not my strong suit, let me tell you. Neither is walking, or avoiding obstacles while walking, or trying to get through a doorway while walking. Putting on an article of clothing while walking, even gloves, provides unintentional slapstick entertainment for everyone in my immediate vicinity.
For years my parents chalked this behaviour up to "clumsiness", "laziness" and, my particular favourite, "not trying hard enough-ness". It was only years later when diagnosed by a doctor that everything made sense. If you throw a ball at a normal person, they will react - their muscles respond to their brain's instructions to move in the right ways in order to catch the ball. If you throw a ball at me, my first and only instinct is to attempt to shield myself with flailing, pathetic arms while screaming like a child, because I lack co-ordination like a mofo and the idea of even trying to catch the ball is fraught with a million memories of being totally and utterly fucking useless at anything that requires movement.

To be fair, my other half does a lot of the manual jar-opening, milk-pouring labour for me now. She has the reflexes of a snake and can pour two things at once without spilling. It is like watching a wizard. However, due to my OCD and tangenty thoughts, and the general mash that is my mind, we have conversations like this.

Other Half: (explodes into room,waving magazine at me) Who is this? Do you know?

Me: (squinting at the magazine) Oh...Rachel McAdam?

Other Half: It's Emily Blunt! EMILY BLUNT! This proves my theory. You have no facial recognition skills whatsoever.

Me: They look exactly the same.

Other Half: They don't.

Me: They really, really do.

Other Half: (stares at me with mixture of pity and defeat) Rachel McAdam was in The Notebook.

Me: Never saw it.

Other Half: We watched it together!

Me: Oh, THAT. Yeah, I hated that. It was awful. What was the question?

Other Half: There was no question.

Me: Don't play coy  with me! Did you want me to guess another? I'll guess another.

Other Half tries to pull magazine away but I yank it free. I point triumphantly.

Me: (beaming proudly) I know who she is! That's Kim Cattrall.

Other Half: THAT'S GLENN FUCKING CLOSE.

Me: (squinting again) Are you sure? They look so similar.

Other Half: How do you even know who I am?

Me: What do you mean? Like if you were kidnapped?

Other Half: Uh...

Me: Yeah, okay, like  you got kidnapped, and then they did a Face/Off on you, and you came back to the house but you looked  like Rachel Blunt or whoever-

Other Half: (pinching her nose) Emily Blunt.

Me: (getting into it) Uh-huh, and then you'd be all "I could eat a peach for hours!" And I'd know then. I'd know you were Nicholas Cage. And if that didn't work, I'd smell you, because you'd probably smell the same even if they surgically removed your face. Unless you'd been eating peaches.

Other Half: (quietly staring at me) There is something wrong with you. Really. Quite wrong.

She leaves the room, taking the magazine and what remains of my dignity. I manage to maintain a suitably downcast isn't-it-a-shame-that-my-brain-doesnt-work-like-other-people's-brains-do but then I remember that I don't care. I rather like the way my brain works. I've had quite a few head injuries in my day and I tend to think that these have somehow altered my brain. That and I never learned to drive, so there's was lot of empty space to be filled with pointless knowledge. At this point I will take out her puzzle book from wherever she's hidden it and slowly, quietly, and with great relish, complete all her crosswords.