Please Don't Make Me Go

The Atlantic has a great article out, “Caring for Your Introvert” that explains what it’s like to be shy to all the normal people who don’t know.  I don’t mean just shy.  I mean, have to work my way up to an event (which can be going to the grocery store) and recuperate the rest of the day.  I talk other people’s ears off when I get an attentive ear; I just don’t like conversations about nothing, aka small talk.  If I start talking about something real, it scares people, and if I don’t say anything, they are afraid of me (I’m pretty sure) and see me as the neighborhood Boo Radley (forgetting that he actually saves Scout in the end and was just shy).  I think Bob Dylan is shy, for instance, and probably not as much of a jerk as he’s come across as sometimes.  The guy probably just wants to be left alone.  At least I’m going to assume that’s the situation.

Diddums and driftington have already brought the subject of shyness up, but I’m going to add to it so that the three people who read my blog will see it even if they don’t check out their posts. 

My name is not Snark, and I am an introvert.

I have gotten myself into a nasty spot within my own family, just because I can't stand the idea of being with all of them at once.  It isn't any one person.  It's the zoo aspect of it.  I don't like to go to movies; I wait for the DVD to come out.  I love the Harry Potter series so much that for book 6, I think, I went to the bookstore at midnight to see if I could get the book earlier than 1:30 PM.  I had a real panic attack.  I had a similar reaction at Disney World (my mom took me one year) when they started the parade.  When I went into Home Depot, I almost lost it between the number of screwdrivers available, the vastness of the place, and the number of people who wanted to help me.  

So if there are any normal people out there, just don't assume that the loners are all potential terrorists.  Some of us are just shy.

I Wonder as I Wander

I talked with my mother this afternoon. I talk with my mother on a more-or-less daily basis. She is willing to take my calls once a day. It sounds worse than it is, I guess. I mean, if I had to listen to me go on about nothing every day, I’d never answer the phone if it could possibly be me. Today, I was going on about the guitar and methods to try to use to learn it. She said, basically, that I start a bunch of things but never finish them. To a certain extent, this is true. To a certain extent, it may be a neurological quirk. Whatever the case, though, it is a characteristic my mother believes I should work to get out of. And, I might add, it is characteristic that she believes it. She is very goal-oriented.

“Say something in Italian,” she says, mocking the fact that I have worked at Italian (to read Dante), Spanish (because it’s everywhere) and French (because I am of French descent, actually have college and graduate credits proclaiming that I should know something, live with a French teacher and am close friends with a French woman). I also went through a short-lived Hebrew phase when I was considering converting to Judaism. That venture is a story in itself. “Ciao,” I said. What’s it to her, I ask, if I shift gears now and then? I’m not a great multitasker. I tend to take to one thing for almost my entire waking hours and really immerse myself in it. I am trying to make myself do at least a bit of this or that unless I have a really good reason not to, but I’m not expecting to win a Nobel or anything at this point. The thing is, my mother hasn’t done anything like play the guitar or learn a foreign language. She went from high school to marriage and business school to motherhood to bookkeeper/secretarial work to college to teaching high school to retirement and remarriage. I’m not saying she didn’t accomplish anything; I’m saying she’s lived a normal life, worked very hard, and kept two kids and a husband under control. Well, I never burned anything down or got arrested, anyway. No one’s had much luck keeping me under control, which is what this is about, I guess.

The fact that I earned a BS, BA and MA mean nothing because I am not using them to make money (because I am disabled). She hasn’t said that, but I think that’s what she thinks. My brother and sister-in-law have said as much. While I did expect to be working after graduation (and I did work – for five years as a programmer and seven as a college freshman composition teacher), I went to college primarily because I like to learn. I had hoped to keep learning and helping others learn.

What I devote my time to now is learning. What I try to do is observe and learn the mechanics of things I appreciate so that I can create something. To me, the observation is at least as important as creation. Anything tangential that comes from it is purely that: tangential. To that end, I’ve played at the Personality Forge building chat-bots and becoming obsessed with how other bots work, am studying and gradually putting into play Internet languages and trying to learn usable programming languages, since what I know won’t get me anywhere in Windows, and I did enjoy programming. I was actually good at it once. I’m working on and off with paints, charcoal, pencil, digital camera and camcorders, guitar (leaving banjo, sax, flute, clarinet, piano and recorders on the back burner due to the passage of time), doing close readings of various literary works as well as reading for knowledge and perspective. (I consider pretty much all reading fun.) I play at chess. I watch movies on DVD, and, once every twenty years or so, I go to a concert.

The thing is, I’ve felt pretty bad about the whole “you can’t do everything” situation since about the time I turned forty. Click here if you want to see a typical self-centered English major take on the situation. Suddenly I realized that time is passing and I’m all over the map. I am working on and culling a lifetime to-do list. But I think my mom, who is a responsible, decent human being – don’t get me wrong (she might read this) – needs to have an itinerary for everything, whereas I start off somewhere and explore. For instance, I might start off with the Arlo concert to reading a book about Woody to learning more about Huntington’s disease. Then I might volunteer some time for an organization about Huntington’s disease. I never know what I’ll be up to from day to day.

But what is life for? I wonder as I wander . . .

New Clues for my Movies

Apparently I was too obscure. That, and nobody much reads my blog. So I've added a few more clues that I hope will be helpful. When these things start to rot, I'll just fill in the blanks.

The Movie Game

Okay, here are the answers. I gave an obscure list because I am drawn to the obscure. The more obscure it is, the more it belongs to me, I guess.

I got this game from Qalmlea and decided to join in. Briefly, the idea is this:

1. Pick fifteen of your favorite movies.

2. Go to imdb.com and find a quote from each movie.

3. Post them here for everyone to guess.

4. Fill in the film once it's guessed.

5. NO GOOGLING/using IMDb search functions. Totally cheating, you dirty cheaters.

I decided to add some hints, since these might be obscure to normal people. Among the remaining 13 movies, actors include

So here are my quotations:

Hints: Both Hepburns are featured (in the movies, if not the quotations). Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, Judi Dench, Jennifer Ehle, Ian Holm, Anthony Hopkins, Peter O’Toole, Vanessa Redgrave and Tom Wilkinson are featured more than once.

1. I don't know. I only know goodness... and anger... and revenge and evil and desire. These seem to me far better words then 'neurosis' and 'psychology' and 'paranoia'. These old words, these good old words have a sort of... conviction... which all this modern apparatus of language now lacks. We bury these words, these simple feelings. We bury them deep. And all the building over that constitutes this century will not wish these feelings away.

This movie came out in the '80s: Wetherby, starring Vanessa Redgrave

2. A: I am sick of fighting! And, I am sick to death of this whole center of the universe, holier than thou, nothing is ever enough. Oh, how I've suffered, nobody understands me. Somebody fix me a drink and hand me a Nembutol, worn out Scarlett O'Hara . . . thing!

B: Well, she's got her pegged, all right.

This movie came out in the 2000s: Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, starring Maggie Smith, Ellen Burstyn, Sandra Bullock, Ashley Judd and James Garner

3. When she was born, that's when things went wrong for us.

This movie came out in the 2000s: Whale Rider, starring no one I've heard of.

4. I do believe in anything, provided it is incredible. That's why I intend to die a Catholic, though I never could live as one.

This movie came out in the '90s: Wilde, starring Vanessa Redgrave, Stephen Fry, Jude Law, Jennifer Ehle, Gemma Jones, Judy Parfitt and Tom Wilkinson.

5. To be born, or at any rate bred in a handbag, whether it have handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life which reminds one of the worst excesses of the French revolution, and I presume you know what that unfortunate movement led to?

This movie came out in the 2000s: The Importance of Being Earnest, starring Colin Firth, Rupert Everett, Judi Dench and Tom Wilkinson.

6. I already know an awful lot of people and until one of them dies I couldn't possibly meet anyone else.

This movie came out in the '60s: Charade, starring Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant and Walter Matthau.

7. You know you don't have to act with me, Steve. You don't have to say anything, and you don't have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.

I thought this one might be too obvious, so I left out the name. Qalmlea recognized it from being quoted in other movies. It is from To Have and Have Not, still with Bogie and Bacall.

8. Expanded quotation:
A: Speaking of horses, I like to play them myself. But I like to see them workout a little first, see if they're front runners or comefrom behind, find out what their whole card is, what makes them run.
B: Find out mine?
A: I think so.
B: Go ahead.
A: I'd say you don't like to be rated. You like to get out in front, open up a little lead, take a little breather in the backstretch, and then come home free.
B: You don't like to be rated yourself.
A: I haven't met anyone yet that can do it. Any suggestions?
B: Well, I can't tell till I've seen you over a distance of ground. You've got a touch of class, but I don't know how, how far you can go.
A: A lot depends on who's in the saddle.

This movie came out in the '40s: The Big Sleep, starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.

9. A: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

B: At my age, there's not much traffic anymore.

This movie came out in the '60s: The Lion in Winter, starring Katharine Hepburn, Peter O'Toole, Anthony Hopkins and Timothy Dalton.

10. A: How do you know you're God?

B: Simple. When I pray to Him, I find I am talking to myself.

This movie came out in the '70s: The Ruling Class, starring Peter O'Toole.

11. That's not why I pray, Harry. I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God, it changes me.

This movie came out in the '90s: Shadowlands, starring Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger.

12. To be Prince of Wales is not a position - it is a predicament.

This movie came out in the '90s: The Madness of King George, starring Nigel Hawthorne, Helen Mirren, Ian Holm and Rupert Everett.

13. A: I can't make out whether you're a bloody madman or just half-witted.

B: I have the same problem, sir.

Correctly identified by John as being from Lawrence of Arabia!

14. A: I hope you appreciate the sacrifice I'm making.

B: You have no choice.

A: I know . . . that's why I'm making it.

This movie came out in the '60s: The Sound of Music, starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer.

15. People don't always say what they're thinking . . . they just see to it that you don't advance in life.

This movie came out in the 2000s: Hannibal, starring Anthony Hopkins and Julianne Moore.

Good luck!