Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

The Plight of a Big-Mouthed Introvert

On two different occasions in the last 5 or 6 years, two totally unrelated girlfriends of mine – who don’t know each other at all – have both given me sets of four matching coffee mugs. They looked something like these:



Cute, very cool, coffee mugs. And given my tendency towards drinking anywhere from 3 to 850 cups of coffee a day, both sets were very thoughtful gifts. Because, after all, I didn’t have any coffee mugs. 

Except:


These aren't actually mine, but it's pretty indicative of how many coffee mugs I have. 30-40. Mugs of all different shapes and sizes. Some from my travels to different places, others from favorite movies, TV or Broadway shows, some just had cool pictures or quotes. Heck, some of them I got just because they were on sale for 99 cents at whatever store I’d gone to that day.

Point was, I’d never really thought about my coffee cups or the fact that not a single one of them matched a single other one of them.  Because most of the time I was drinking coffee by myself.

Because I like drinking coffee by myself.

Because, believe it or not, I am actually very much an introvert.

Go ahead and laugh, I don’t blame you. Most people laugh at that the words Janie and introvert in the same sentence.

Because no, I am not shy. No, I’m not quiet. And no, I’m not necessarily overly creative.  All of which are common myths about introverts.

The Interwebs have been fairly blowing up over the past few days with stuff about Introverts (not new stuff, but new to me). The funniest was (of course) BuzzFeed's 27 Problems Only Introverts Will Understand.  But this little cartoon is my favorite, because it’s just so simple, but so true:


The full infographic guide can be found here

And that’s the basic truth about me, minus the hamster ball.  I can be with people, have lots of fun, chit chat, etc.,  but it’s not an easy, natural process for me. It costs me energy.  The longer I have to do it, the more it takes out of me.

And the crazy thing is, it doesn’t matter who it is: friends, family, complete strangers, or the people I love the most in the world. After a certain amount of time – usually not too long – with people, I shut down. It has nothing to do with being shy or quiet or not liking them.

Most friends realize this about me relatively early.They know I don’t answer my phone. Ever.  (But I will text). They know that when I’m out running,  I want to run alone, rather than with people. They know that I don’t have friends over at my house very often because I can’t control when they’ll leave. (And evidently saying, “Hey, it’s a quarter past get out” isn’t socially acceptable).

Introvert.

My two friends with the coffee cups – two of my most precious friends – both had a difficult time understanding my introverted nature because they are both fabulous extroverts. They have parties, and get-togethers, and fun soirees all the time. They go out with people, or their husbands, or both, on both Friday AND Saturday nights. Every weekend.

They would ask me what I did this weekend, I  would respond: “Oh, I just hung out at home by myself.” To them, that is the most heartbreaking answer anyone could give.

The purpose of their coffee cup gifts were to help me be less introverted. Gifts that suggested: let’s have a group of gals come over to Janie’s house and drink coffee! Now that she has the matching cups, she has no reason not to do it. She has no reason to ever tragically answer, “Oh, I just hung out at home by myself.”

It took us a while to work though these differences. I hurt their feelings a lot of times because of choosing to be by myself rather than do something with them. I wish I had the cartoon to give to them then so they could’ve understood so neatly. But even without it, we eventually found an extrovert/introvert balance.

Now, I make an effort to invite them over for coffee regularly. They make an effort to state up front how long they will be at my house and know that there is a time limit for how long I can chat without completely shutting down. They understand that I am an introvert. And weird.

I am grateful to have friends who accept me for what I am: a big-mouthed introvert.

And we always drink out their matching coffee cups when they are here.
  

Thursday, June 6, 2013

I Declare Shenanigans!

I’m off again on a mini-adventure. Another 200-mile RagnarRelay race – this one from Madison, Wisconsin to Chicago. I’ve never been to Chicago. I always love to go new places. (Especially when the East Coast is about to get pelted by Tropical Storm Andrea. That’s my cue to head to the mid-west).

My portion of that 195.4 miles is going to be about 22 miles. I haven't run in nearly two weeks, so this should be pretty interesting.

Ragnar Relays are always crazy. 12 people, 2 vans, 36 hours. It's kind of marathon-meets-block-party. I’ve run five now:

September 2011 (Washington DC) – Team Does this Tutu Make Me Look Fast? (AKA – “I don’t know any of these women. How did I end up doing this again?”)
Do you mean fast or FAST...


January 2012 (Miami to Key West) – Team Zombies Are Everywhere.com (AKA – “It’s awesome to have a corporate sponsor even when it’s the undead.”)
We don't look like zombies yet, but give us 36 hours...


September 2012 (Washington DC) – Team Honey Badger Don’t Care (AKA – “Actually, little known fact: Honey Badgers DO care.”)
Van Stranger Danger


November 2012 (Las Vegas) – Team World’s Dumbest Road Trip (AKA – “Staying awake for 48 hours then going clubbing is probably not a good idea.”)
Don't even ask...


January 2013 (Miami to KW) – Team Cobra Kai (AKA – “Nope,  sorry. THIS was the world’s dumbest road trip.”)
Troublemakers unite.

This weekend I’m on Team Where’d the Cheese Go?.   To be honest, even after hearing that Ween song I still don’t quite get it. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is I’m required to wear a yellow tank top, knee socks, aviator sunglasses and A FAKE MUSTACHE  for the team pictures.

That’s enough for me to know I’m going to have a good time.  Plus my partners in crime S and M (S&M – hahahaha) will be there.  As always, shenanigans will ensure. Thus my poem for today:


I declare shenanigans.
I declare adventures.
I declare laughing until you have to hold your belly because it hurts so much.

I declare dancing when you’re happy.
And dancing when you’re sad.
I declare 40 is just a number, no better or worse than 25 or 35 or 85 - because each has its unique treasures and problems.

I declare crushing on cute guys.
I declare chasing trouble.
I declare not accepting limits just because someone says they’re so.
.
I declare I will enjoy and appreciate what today offers and not worry so much about tomorrow.

But mostly…

I declare shenanigans!

Friday, August 10, 2012

My New Motto: “Less Routine, More Stupid.”


Last night I went to see The Bourne Legacy at the midnight showing.  Although I had been anticipating the movie’s release for weeks, I had not planned on going to the midnight show.  After all, I have four kids, two of which had to be up for camp at 7:00am. I knew choosing a midnight show would come at a price and I would be stupid to pay it.

Just call me stupid.

The movie wasn’t that great. I was  pretty disappointed overall. You can see my movie review here at my much more nerdy blog where I co-author: Sweep-the-Leg.com.

Am I exhausted today? Yes. But do I regret it? No.  I threw out the movie gauntlet on Facebook at about 8:30pm last night when I found out there was a midnight showing of Bourne.  Here was the challenge:

Who's up for a midnight showing of Bourne Legacy? Because sleep is for sissies.

I didn’t really expect anyone to seriously respond with a yes. Most of my friends are like me: they have spouses, kids, jobs, stuff that makes their mornings come early.   Seeing a movie, even one they really want to see, isn’t worth the price of breaking up their routine.

But I’m trying to get out of having too much routine in my life. My new motto: Less routine, more stupid. (Or as my husband calls it “the full-on stupid”.)  

Who took me up on challenge? One of my writer friends. She’s a young woman in her early 20s, unmarried, kind-of reserved and quiet.  I like her a whole lot.  Our lives are totally different.

Or maybe not really so different if you were to look at the greater scheme;  we’re just at different stages of similar lives.  Either way, we’re alike enough to have stuff in common, but different enough to enjoy each other’s company. Hanging out with her in the middle of the night at a movie theater with a bunch of geeks? Pure fun. 

I’m finding more and more that it is important to have friends whose lives are different, or at least in different places, than my own.  It makes me remember that there is existence outside of my late30s suburbian world of mortgages, kids, minivans, husbands, computers, home improvements, and back-to-school supplies.  Perspectives long forgotten or perhaps not arrived at yet.
                              
So the movie was a bust and today I am exhausted.  That was two hours of unconsciousness I can never get back.  Thank goodness.



Friday, January 27, 2012

Bestest Facebook Buddies and Other People We've Never Met

I recently switched my Facebook page over to the “timeline” format. I’m done fighting the inevitable. (“You can’t stop the signal, Mal…”).
Do I like the new timeline format? Does anybody, really?  The giant picture across the top is pretty cool, but besides that I find the new format generally more difficult to both look at and utilize.  Makes my favorite pastime of cyber-stalking more difficult. Boo Facebook.
And, seriously, does anybody really want to know what I was doing in 1986? I think not.  And it’s not like I can remember anyway. But, the FB timeline is here to stay. We all might as well get used to it.
While I was switching over, I decided I would do an cursory examination of my  FB friends and see how I knew them. I was sure I could find something entertaining/thought-provoking to write about. 
You know what I found? Absolutely NOTHING interesting.  Nada.
(Just in case you are determined to avoid doing anything productive for as long as possible today, I have included my “Facebook Friends” breakdown graph.)
See how I wasn’t kidding when I said nothing interesting? I would imagine this chart looks similar to about 90% of suburbanite mom Facebook users. We know each other from high school, college, church, and kids' activities. Very not interesting.
What became most intriguing to me were the half-dozen people not easily characterized into one of my little statistics.  For example,  
under what category does someone fall whom I’ve never actually met in real life and is the ex-boyfriend of the daughter of friends I know because they also adopted a child from China?
(Follow that?? It's kinda like mother's hairdresser's cousin's sister-in-law, or some such nonsense) Ironically, this person is someone I interact with most – I find him delightfully insightful and entertaining. But if I saw him in a supermarket, I'm not sure I would recognize him.
Then there were three Facebook “friends” who I honestly had no idea how I knew them. I was certain I never met them in real life, nor actually interacted with them on FB. Oh well, I guess it would be rude to unfriend them now.
There are many different types of people on Facebook.  I have found all of following (heck, I’ve probably been half the following at one time or another):
  17. The "Blogger" - Posts annoying updates about their blog 2-3 times a week. (Ummm... how inappropriate! I say we kill them all!) 
So in the end, although I didn't really discover anything interesting, I guess it is good to know who my Facebook my friend are. It’s like the cartoon says, I love my computer because all my friends live in it. I just hope it never breaks - because then how will I have friends? 

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Facebook, You Time-Sucking Abyss: How I love you

Facebook is a time-sucking abyss.  I don’t know a single person in the universe who would pretend like they don’t agree. The hours I have spent on Facebook – and believe me, they are multiple – I can never get back. I initially resisted Facebook’s pull as long as possible, joining only in January 2010. But since then, it has become a regular, daily addiction ahem, fixture in my life.
Let’s face it, we know more about some FB “friends” than we ever wanted to know. Ever.  When their kids are going to the dentist.  What they had for breakfast.  This “really super cute” picture that “they don’t normal share, but had to just this one time” of some puppy/kitten/hamster/laughing baby/laughing twin babies/kid dressed like Darth Vader they found. Ad Nauseam.
And heaven knows that every single time there’s some big sporting upset, somebody posts that Hitler clip from the movie Downfall.  You know what I’m talking about.  Just add your own caption.
Each day I get on Facebook expecting to spend a couple minutes browsing through lives of my friends and loved ones. Ahhh, Facebook, how you fool me every time! All it takes is one witty or funny post, and I am immediately forced to think of something just as entertaining to say. And heaven forbid someone actually post on my wall or send me a private message… A few moments later I am wondering if I became stuck in some sort of time vortex because SURELY TWO HOURS HAD NOT ALREADY PASSED!
Yes, that scenario has been the picture of many-a-day in Janie’s world. So now you know why I hate Facebook. But let me tell you why I will always be thankful for Facebook.
It gave me back my Megan. 

Megan & I in South Florida last week


Megan and I had been good friends and neighbors in the late 90s. But when she and her family moved out of state over ten years ago, we lost touch. We’re both busy with young families. Neither of us are phone-talkers or letter-writers. Facebook became a wonderful medium for us to rekindle our friendship. With Facebook as our home base, we planned multiple adventures over the last couple of years, and seen each other more than in all the other years combined.

At another of our crazy jaunts in October











I'm thrilled Megan and I are back in each other's lives. She's such a fabulous person on every level. And for that, and the other similar friendships I’ve regained or been able to grow through Facebook, I will gladly wade through the cute kitten pictures, dentist stories, and Hitler clips.  Time-sucking abyss? Definitely. But worth it.