(That last line would make a great bio-postcard -- my neighbors have this great retro monkey wallpaper, I picture that in the background...)
I just read an article in the NYT about a woman who opened her house to anarchists -- not violent, smashing things kind of anarchists, but non-hierarchical, cooperative anarchists. (One line was "we're like Quakers who swear a lot.") Brought to mind my ~3 years in the housing co-op, tried to figure out if I miss it or not. I bring it up because one thing that was beneficial to me was the forced social interaction... while I like being with people, given a spare day or couple of hours I will pretty much always choose to read a book, or make a doll for my daughter [doing that now, it's cool, but I digress], before calling someone and saying "Hey, want to go get some coffee?" Yet if when I wandered down to the kitchen of the co-op to get some coffee to read with my book in my room, other people would be there too, and one thing would lead to another and before I knew it we'd been having an impassioned discussion for 3 hours.
Kinda miss that part.
I acutally did have a wallpaper mini-bio:
I know what you mean about forced social interaction. I worked my way through college as a bartender and my current job requires me to get to know someone well in a very short period of time.
I think that is part of my problem though -- by the time I get home I'm all socialed out.
Right, I was maybe thinking of that one already. Very cool one.
I know what you mean about socialed out.
I was raised to feel that conversation for the sake of conversation was filling the air with noise and a wicked way to behave.
I still feel that pointless conversation is wicked.
Wicked!
Now there's a good word.
I can chit-chat with the person in line behind me at the grocery and have a jolly time because I know that there is no further obligation.
I'm really bad about maintaining contacts even with people that I like very much.
I'm completely socially retarded.
Boomerang must be stopped!! She has stolen my life!
I can't tell you how many times I've said SO many of the same things you've said...socially retarded....not wanting to bump into people I know...the not anti-social, but a-social...
Please chart your approach to where you are going.
I'll be back later. Daughter ready to go.
(I don't believe this!)
Having spend 1,000 years or so as a child protection worker, everywhere I went, shopping at the mall, groceries, standing in line at the post office, I surveyed those around me picking out the perps and naming their offences. Sometimes I still do that.
Boomerang, I donated my body to Science, but they turned it down--wouldn't tell me why.
Dys. Is that what was in your head when you were staring at me?
I'm VERY socialable (almost to a fault). I feel very free to talk to strangers and would very likely wish to have more interaction with most of them--everybody's interesting in some way. But my wife, as wonderful as she is, is a veritable recluse. I can't get her to socialize with most others. As a result, my social life consists of interactions with an unfortunately small set of friends. But my wife's virtues make up for it.
JLN, Between my wife and I, I guess I'm the extrovert. We're not shy by any means, because I worked in management most of my working career, and my wife worked as a nurse - much longer than my career. She's finally retiring after she finishes work - today. HURRAY! We have our circle of friends - most we've known since most of us were single. I'm one of those lucky blokes that have friends all over the world, and communicate with some on a regular basis on the net. One of my oldest friend is somebody I met while stationed in Morocco with the USAF in the late fifties. We've exchanged christmas cards ever since even though both of us moved several times since then.
Mr. B requires much more social interaction than I do and he is welcome to indulge to his heart's content as long as my presence is not required.
I go along sometimes.
Especially after I learned that his office mates thought I was a "rent-a-wife".
I believe that there are several types of body donations, JLNobody. My sister handled my father's body donation and I know his body was not suitable for medical school disection (they have to use "healthy" corpses). It was done through a medical school but, I believe, his body was parceled out to a variety of labs.
Boomer, same here, as long as she doesn't have to attend.
JLNobody wrote:Boomer, same here, as long as she doesn't have to attend.
Ummmm.....
I'll take it that you mean the social situations and not the medical school disections.....
My husband was gregarious and the center of parties I attended in college. People gravitated to him. I stood close by to get the vibe of social interaction. I could be happy observing.
Boomer-- Another similarity I noticed was being great at short term relationships. I'm great when I know I don't have to keep up with it. It appears, I'm sure, that I don't value people, but that's not it. It is excrutiatingly exhausting to maintain social relationships to me. I know this sounds like a cop out on my part, but I swear 85% of the relationships I've tried to maintain are fueled by very little more than gossip about other people. My attempts to avoid this make me seem like an alien, or a snob. I know I'm faulted, but what Noddy (I think) said a few pages ago hits me right in the heart-- conversation for the sake of keeping noise going is like dragging me across the room face first. It's incredibly uncomfortable for me. Just STFU sometimes, you know...? Sometimes, can't friends sit outside and enjoy the breeze.... ?
Gustav and Lash, sitting quietly on the cliff edge watching the sunset and "enjoying the breeze" as Lash says, was actually the impetus for the conception of Lashenhofer.
He knows all my weaknesses.
Nice breeze.
Boomer is a gifted photographer. I looked at some of her work, and these were my comments. They don't say much, but I wanted people here to know what I thought of them.
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Those pictures brought tears to my eyes. I don't know how you could possibly "hide" (for lack of a better word) such a huge part of yourself from the main board pages. The black and white of "Marley" with her head resting, and the tendril across her face, the color of the little boy ..(Tyler?) with the partial profile and the fire-blue eyes... The sisters with rose petals... so many extraordinary ones, I'd have much less to do, listing the ones that didn't make my heart jump.
Thank you so much for sharing them with me. When you decide to share them with the board, you will likely be overwhelmed with the response. How intuitive you are. Lovely. Meaningful.
~A fan,
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She explains they aren't hidden...they're tucked away in different spots on the board, I'd just missed them.
Pretty.
