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I have often wanted to get a scan of my brain to see what lights up during certain tasks.  I find I have some extraordinary talents and abilities, but on the flip side I have the worst problems that I have had to figure out how to compensate for.

I have a strange mix of heritage.  On my father's side a daughter of an Italian immigrant decided she would marry a white Connecticut Yankee farmer who has been in America since it's beginning.  Oh and he was 12 years her senior.  My grandmother decided they would get married.  It was quite the scandal, but the Peck's aren't known for their outgoing nature.  They seem to be lucky if 1 out of 3 kids gets married.  No surprise when I say that my younger brother and I are the last of the Peck family line.  My younger brother managed to have a son so the name is safe for another generation.  Plus my older Brother took the last name Peck, so his two sons are adopted in. 

On my mother's side I have two genius grandparents.  My grandfather is known for his work in chemistry.  As children he would grab our arms and spin us towards him to tell of his latest findings in the lab.  With great enthusiasm he would draw chemical formulas onto napkins.  I would nod my head in agreement even though I had no idea what he was talking about, but he was so happy when he spoke I thought it had to be important.  My grandmother was very shrewed.  I knew her most as a hobbiest.  She was an amateur in everything.  Amateur painter, amateur doll maker, amateur seamstress.  Apparently she was once a college professor in Chemistry. My aunts have an article in a newspaper about my grandmother going back to work and leaving her 8 kids at home.  It was quite a new thing at that time.

My mother told me a story once that my grandfather came home bemoaning the fact that he thought he had failed the tests that they had given him at work.  My mother said that she was trying to convince him that he could not fail because they had come to study his genius.  These people had come to try and figure out what made a genius and they used my grandfather to do it.

So on one side I have the intelligent college professors and on the other side I have the street smarts.  It combined strangely in my brain.  I have some learning disabilities.  I hate language.  I do not understand its ebb and flow at all.  I feel bad because I think I helped to strangle a Spanish program in my elementary school.  My best friend was Mexican and one of her families favorite things to do was make fun of me.  They would point at an item and say what it was in Spanish.  I would try my best to repeat the word, but I could not get my mouth to do what I knew to be right.  Then the family would burst out in laughter at my mangled attempt.  I knew I could never take Spanish in school and hope to pass.  At a family reunion I sat down to hear one of my cousins say, "So how many languages are you up to?"  One cousin answered "About 5."  I immediately got up and walked away knowing I had no answer. 

Nobody ever guessed or did anything about my problems.I compensated for many of my problems.   I was a prolific reader.  I picked up a Stephen King novel in 7th grade just because it was an epic tomb.  It was "The Stand" and it was over a 1,000 pages.  I read everything else too fast.  I have an incredible vocabulary and base of knowledge because of my reading, but I reverse letters all the time.  I have had to memorize how to spell.  I can not do it phonetically.  I stayed hours after school one time because my teacher said I couldn't go until I finished an essay.  For the life of me I could not figure out how to spell "going".  I could not substitute a different word and the teacher said I had to look it up in the dictionary.  I had no idea where to look for it, so I sat there, helpless.  Finally a janitor came in to clean the room.  I was desperate.  I whispered to him to tell me how to spell going.  He told me and I finished my essay only to go home quite disgruntled.  I didn't think it was fair to do that to me.

My spelling test were atrocities.  The only subject I would get F's in, so my mother started practising with me before every test.  She would say the word and have me spell it.  I did fine with her only missing one or two words.  Then I would take the test the next day...F, in red ink.  My mother figured out that I would reverse the text when I wrote it down and looked at it.  I should have just written the word and then gone on, but it never looked right.  I was mortified when the school was looking for spelling bee contestants from each class.  I thought I would be knocked out right away.  It didn't happen.  Finally we were down to three students including me.  I got the word.  Crap!  I know how to spell it.  I did not want to be in a spelling bee when my tests were terrible, so I misspelled it on purpose.  I tried to carry spell checkers around with me, anything to not misspell words because it makes a person seem unintelligent.  I finally had a break through by accident.  My parents bought me a typewriter and word processor in one.  You could write your document first and then it would type it out when finished.  It had a spell checker that beeped the moment you spelled a word wrong.  It beeped constantly when I used it.  I would check and find that I was misspelling the same words over and over.  I still have to pause at times, but I retrained my brain to spell those common mistakes correctly.

I look at problems very differently then the people around me and I have had to learn how to adjust my words for them.  I feel misunderstood all of the time.  I gravitated towards quilting because of the way the fabrics are put together.  I glance over the instructions, but mostly I look at a picture and I decide for myself how I want to put it together.  I decide the size or I do it by how much fabric I have.  When sewing a dress I do not read the directions.  I lie in bed and I go through each step in my mind.  I cut the fabric out in my head.  I start sewing in my head and I make the mistakes in my head.  Then when I sit down to construct the garment, I have already done all the steps and I complete the project in record time.  Sometimes I wish I was a genius.  People seem more forgiven of geniuses, but I find my brain works much quicker then my hands.  I often make mistakes that a genius doesn't do because I am not exacting.  I am not obsessive in my need for control, so I often would get a math problem wrong because I did not care the 1.

I admire Sherlock Holmes and the character Dr. Georgy House on "House MD" and to a smaller degree Patrick Jane on "The Mentalist"(I think they cheat with him sometimes)  These characters observe their surroundings and are able to come to conclusions that seem like magic.  What I like about these characters is that they explain why they come up with their conclusions.  Holmes in particular seems to have a wealth of information at his fingertips.  They have incredible memories and that is a place I excel in.  I remember and because I remember when a statement is said months later I can pick up the connection.  I was in a production and doing costumes.  While I was getting my make-up done helpers were frantically trying to get other actors ready.  At first they would ask my mother where things were,but soon the helper would ask, "Where is the masking tape?" "In the Yellow California pizza kitchen bag on the little stage to the right next to the  wall."  And that was one of the reasons why I was a good costumer.  I almost always had the things needed and if I had touched it.  I knew exactly where it was.  I do not have the level of knowledge of the characters I admire, but I am able to figure out a lot about a person through body movements, tone of voice, and overheard  conversations.  I watch people.  I kind of wish I had training in being a physic, but I am not very good at improve.  People do not follow the script in my head and it can get me into trouble.

I have the ability to read people almost like books.  I can tell by the clues that we give out all the time.  An individual talks even when their is nothing coming out of their mouths.  I listen.  I listen because it was a matter of survival, but as I faded into the background I became fascinated by the dichotomy of people.  What they showed in their movements and faces does not match up to what they say.  I had the hardest time accepting that they really weren't being two face, but that they didn't know what they were projecting.  I sit to talk down with someone and I know that they are unhappy and I know that they are depressed and I know that they are trying desperately to hide it all.  I get into trouble when I say something, so I do not say anything even though I see them heading for a crash and burn. 

I figured out late in life that I remember my interaction with individuals.  I care.  I care what a person says to me.  If you tell me your favorite color or the birthday party theme.  I remember the fact and use it to start a new conversation later, but  the other person does not remember telling me these things and freaks out.  I figured this out doing a play.  I had the same conversations over and over and I did not understand.  We had gone through the whole rehearsal process together, we would perform a weekend together and by Sunday it felt awful to be separated.  Then Friday would come around again and I would pick up in the same place as when we parted, but other people didn't do that.  It was like I never existed and I had to jump through all the hoops again and overcome the obstacles again.  I would give up.  I couldn't stand having to start the relationships at 0 when I thought we had gotten to a 4.

So things never seemed to get any deeper.  Over and over the same conversations, so other people would feel at easy.  I am all for those stupid conversations about the weather, but please, can't we move on from that?  Very few. 

I did not know for along time that I was seeing what people wanted to bury.  I reacted to the traits that individuals wanted to hide and very few have been able to understand my motivations.  I do not do what is expected.  And thank goodness I really do not care anymore.  I guess that is why I finally decided to write this blog.  I fought it for years because I did not know how accepting people would be to my point of view.  In person I get yelled at and I find it much easier to bow my head and apologize for my action or really apologize for how you see my actions because I have a reason behind everything I do.