2001-01-15 - 11:34am

Who's Who Cheat Sheet
Who I Read

On the internal soundtrack:

Three-six-nine
The goose drank wine
The monkey chewed tobacco on the street car line
The line broke
The monkey got choked
And they all went to heaven in a little row boat

Where the heck is that from? There was a "clapping song" that used it awhile back -- they used to play it at roller skating parties when I was in sixth grade (Christ, I'm old ... that would be about 17 years ago, maybe?), but the rhyme is older than that.

So, introverts vs. extroverts. Do you know which you are?

I'm an introvert. I like having a LOT of time to myself. I mean, a lot. Being around other people, although I usually enjoy it quite a bit, requires a certain amount of effort, and is not very high on my list of priorities. I can spend hours and hours by myself -- days, really -- before I get bored or fidgety like extroverts do after ten minutes or so (my brother is like that). Before Poindexter came along and made himself a permanent fixture in my life (well, yes, I invited him) I had my own apartment and I spent a lot of time there, alone.

I'm not always antisocial. I like people. I was going to say that I don't like to skate alone, that I have my skate club. Then I realized that although I do enjoy talking to people, the best thing about the club is that it allows me to skate places I couldn't ordinarily, as a lone, small, hard-of-hearing female. And sometimes when I skate I really don't feel like talking to anybody.

I've heard that if you're an introvert, it means you get energy, or recharge, by being alone. Extroverts get it from being with people. It has nothing to do with whether you like other people or not. (If you don't, you're a misanthrope, I guess.) Jay at work says that extroverts like people in general, in groups, and introverts like individuals. If that's the case, that explains why I like meeting new people so much, or chatting with people in the grocery store.

You know those tests they do where they put someone underground with no natural light to find out what the human biorhythm is? I think I could probably do that. I'd miss Poindexter though. No, wait, I'd go nuts if I couldn't go outside and walk or skate.

Poindexter is probably an introvert -- he doesn't like to leave home, ever, if possible. But he's got an odd quirk that he likes to have people around to pester. He likes attention, although he doesn't demand it in childish ways. What does that mean? I suppose the introver-extrovert thing is a continuum, and few people really fall onto either end.

One thing I've never really understood is roommates. If money is not a problem, why do people have them? I always felt that the disadvantages outweighed the benefits. I mean, sure, you have someone to help with the cleaning and there's somebody there if you want to talk, but on the other hand, that's two people to clean up after and there's always somebody in the WAY. If you want somebody to talk to, invite somebody over or go out, y'know? Having a roommate was always something of a strain on me.

Poindexter, at least, is not a strain as a roommate. I'm not sure why. Back when I lived with him for 3 weeks and then went to Virginia for a week for work, I remember he used to bug me for a day or two when I got back. I had to re-adjust to having someone else around. When we're apart now, this doesn't happen anymore, I guess because being with him is the "baseline" (back then I was still more used to living alone).

Anyways, nowadays if I need to be alone I can hide somewhere else in the house or go out by myself, but I don't usually need to do that. I can get time to myself even if he's in the room. He's just not very intrusive somehow. We seem to coexist very smoothly. Right now I'm sitting here typing away and he's watching butt evaluations on the Howard Stern E! show he taped. I interrupted him to argue about whether one girl's butt was any good (he liked it; I thought it wasn't big enough), and then it was back to "ignoring" each other again.

So, I ventured outside the Beltway yesterday.

It felt weird.

So, I was utterly disgusted to find that my local Safeway had ceased to carry my favorite kind of Pop-Tarts (cinnamon, UNFROSTED). I was livid. So I decided I was going to find another one. I looked through the phone book and decided that one just outside the Beltway was the best bet. It was most likely to be really big and therefore have a larger selection of Pop-Tarts, among other things.

So I went. And it was weird. Everything was spaced out more (where I am, things are pretty dense), and the traffic was worse. I had to sit at this one intersection for what felt like five minutes. Ugh. It had two left turn lanes in every direction. Blearygh. I can't believe how I live in this little cocoon inside the Beltway now. If I have to go somewhere outside it, I'll put it off for weeks because I dislike it so much. In here, I rarely have to deal with traffic and everything's very close together. (And yet -- it's still not close ENOUGH together; I can't believe what a city mouse I've become.)

But it's worthwhile, going out to this other store. The Safeway has my Pop-Tarts, plus a huge selection of most other things as well. Every once in a while I'll go out there to stock up.

The whole experience made me homesick for San Jose. I was reminded of it because we used to drive 10 minutes away to some nearby suburb to shop, because the Midtown Safeway didn't seem to have any idea how to judge supply and demand and was always out of everything.

My allergies are back. I'm pissed. Yesterday I sneezed for the first time in over a week. It hurt. This morning I'm sneezing repeatedly. Ugh. Poindexter suggests I visit an allergist and tell him about the lack of sneezing immediately following a cold. I'll think about that. If there's a non-drug way of dealing with allergies I'd probably go for it. But I'm leery of using drugs on a regular basis.

On Saturday I had to return the movie and get another, so I decided to walk over to Blockbuster. There's a Fuddrucker's another 1/4 mile east so I decided to get myself a burger for dinner, too. I was very happy. And I delude myself into thinking that the walking I did counteracts the artery-clogging effects of the burger. Yeah.

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