About a year ago, while sitting in bed with my wife, she was pouring over some book about Autism Spectrum Disorders for her job.  She is a behavioral therapist for children on "the Spectrum", and a psychology student with a working understanding of Autism and it's cousins.  The conversation went something like this...

 She turned to me, without actually looking, and asked, "Sweetie, you have Tourettes, right?"  

I waited for the delayed eye contact I assumed would come from a pause, and, once my game had been played, I responded.  "Yeah."

She made a face and kept reading.  She stopped.  "Sweetie, this book says that Tourettes, ADD, OCD, and Social Anxiety Disorder are all related to Asperger's and Autism."

I shrugged.  I turned to walk out of the room and begin my nightly ritual of watching TV until I passed out.  I took one step before turning back around and looking at her.   It took me a moment to process what she meant. 
"Honey... I could..well, I could have Asperger's Syndrome."

"I know."

 A short conversation that has had a dramatic impact on my life.  I am in the process of getting an Autism Spectrum analysis, and have already started sensory and social skills therapy.  It was one of those realizations like in the movie, where the main character has always felt different or special, only to be told they aren't, and then they find out they are and their father is really their favorite astronaut and their mom is actually an alien and they can lift things with their mind.  Except I was always told I was special, and suddenly I was what some might consider disabled.  

So, in the last few months I went from just quirky and weird to, well... quirky and weird with a medical cause.  During this time, I've learned a lot about myself and why I am the way I am.  Certainly, much of it is simply my personality, flaws and blips that are simply part of my make up.  However other things (like the fact that I used "however" to start this sentence instead of "But") are fully and reasonably the fault of a little switch in my brain that doesn't work right.

So, in an effort to better understand myself, I've begun work on a new novel.  I haven't written a novel since my wacky detective adventure  starring a larger-than-life facimile of my teenage self, which I wrote as a (surprise!) aspiring teenage novelist.  Mind you, Simon and Schuster said they admired my spirit, but the novel lacked "cohesion and devolpment".  So, following through on the promise I made them in the letter I sent as a response (I was 15 and didn't quite understand how the world worked...and still don't), I am beginning a new project starring, you guessed it, a facsimile of my 20-something self in a, you guessed it, detective adventure.  I am nothing if not original.

The difference?  This character is a police officer who is just finding out why he can't shut out the information flowing in from around him, and why his whole life collapses when the smallest detail changes.  I figured if nothing else, it'll be a good way to  develop a better understanding of myself.  So, when I finish it in about 10 years, I will self-publish it, and hold a book signing at the local library you can all avoid coming to.  Sound good?

 Me too.