Word of the day: Prosopagnosia.

Also known as "difficulty or inability in recognizing specific faces." Also known as "problem that has plagued me and annoyed my mother for years."

It's not that I can't recognize faces; I'm just shitty at it. I have been to church with the same people for years on end and wouldn't be able to tell you their names if you asked me to. I have difficulty recognizing actors unless I've seen them in a multi-season TV show or unless there's something really distinctive about them (to this day, I do not know how people recognize Terry Thomas by anything other than his voice).

Watching The United States of Tara, it took me about three episodes to realize that the husband was played by John Corbett, despite the fact that I'd seen his name in the credits twice.

There was one point in my teenage years when I honestly could not make out the difference between Danny Kaye and Bing Crosby until I actually saw Kaye and remembered what he looked like (confusion that has since cleared up, fortunately).

I can't count the number of times I've heard my mother ask me "Do you know who that is?" like I should know, but I honestly don't recognize them at all.

It's a big enough problem that I've changed the way I perceive the world to compensate - when I'm trying to recognize someone, I usually start by listening to their voice, and then trying to pinpoint specific facial features that seem similar to me. It's a process. Usually works pretty well.

I don't know why I have his problem. Could be because I was dropped on my head as a baby (seems unlikely) or just something genetic (seems more possible). I also have some of the shittiest short-term memory retention of an otherwise healthy person that I know - unless it's personally significant, it will usually drop straight out of my head if I don't repeat it over and over. And not just long words like "prosopagnosia," but factoids like "you need to go to your grandmother's house to help her with something."

A consequence of that is that I end up writing stuff down a lot. Which impresses people, because I look all organized and premeditative. People really, really like that.