My brother and I share a birthday, but we are not twins. He was born three years before me. That birthday itself is another oddity: Boxing Day, 26 December.
I am an automotive mechanic by trade, and I’m gay. That’s rare enough, but my real name actually reflects this. It’s Carmen. Car. Men. I was powerless to resist.
I do not drink, smoke, or do drugs. I don’t even drink coffee. It’s not that I have anything against anyone who does any of it (my father and brother are both alcoholics, and I smoked like a chimney from the early 1980’s until 2001 or so). I just don’t have any taste for it.
I live on the east coast of Canada, in the province of Nova Scotia. I take my Canadian-ness very seriously, and go out of my way to use Canadian spellings (which are similar to British spellings), such as Colour, Honour, Doughnut, Grey, and the like. I say “out of my way” because autocorrect on my phone often tries to thwart me. If it doesn’t just take it upon itself to change a word, it will underline it red as though it were misspelled. And, for the love of God, Z is pronounced “Zed”, not “Zee”. I will die on this hill. Except when saying “ZZ Top”, which is the only circumstance where Zee sounds right to me.
