Problems I Have

[mrissa]

1. See yesterday's entry.

2. I am an introvert. I am a gregarious introvert. This means that there is a very large category of things that are fun for me without being in the slightest bit relaxing for me. They keep popping up lately. This is not a bad thing, but...oof.

3. Teenagers, the moon, and a gerund title do not make books equivalent. David Gerrold's Jumping Off the Planet was in no real (non-superficial) way like John M. Ford's Growing Up Weightless. More's the pity.

4. And speaking of Mr. Ford, I now think of Lorenzo di Medici as Arlo Guthrie in disguise or vice versa. This is not at all Mr. Ford's fault, but rather stems from a conversation I had in Oregon. But I picked up The Dragon Waiting, and there was the Medici in the table of contents, and my brain produced the guitar riff from Alice's Restaurant automatically. Stupid brain. (Incidentally, I didn't know The Dragon Waiting would be Richard III-ful. How exciting. I didn't bother to read the back cover; I saw that it was there and Fordian, and I wanted it, and there we had that.)

5. I am not singing "Alice's Restaurant" (not a problem) because I am entirely full of "Pirates of Penzance" songs (problem). On the up side, this makes me nearly earworm-proof. I expect this to last at least a week. It lasted several months last time, but that was not exactly independent conditions (see today's Novel Gazing for more of that. Lots more. Probably more than you wanted.)

6. timprov's health insurance packet finally arrived. The first one they sent out. Postmarked May 25. How am I supposed to deal with the world using the post office when they do this to me? The second packet had already arrived. What else have they got hidden from me? Yarg!

7. I am unable to accept doing well at something "for my age." I just want to do well. One of my friends once gave this as a "problem" of only children. It doesn't look like a problem to me. (I'm sure she would give this as further evidence of my maladjustment, but she's made her views on only children more than abundantly clear, and I'm about ready to take her head off in one bite if I hear another word of it.) Anyway, this is generally a fine thing but occasionally gets frustrating when I can't console myself that really, I've done quite a lot of things I'm happy with for the amount of time I've had to work with. Who cares about what's humanly possible, after all?

8. The best thing about going up to Blaisdell Ave -- no, wait, I promise I'll get to the problem -- is getting to see pameladean and dd_b and lydy (when she is there, which she was not today, which was not what one would call a good thing but not the sort of negative that gets categorized as a problem per se). But leaving is a problem, not just because I get chattery but also because of my rearview mirror. Going down 35W southbound from there, the rearview mirror has such a beautiful view of the city that I want to whip my head around and just stare at it. And also bite my lip and sniffle. It's purty going towards the folks on Blaisdell, too, but for some reason much easier to handle. Also, in frontal view it looks like my city; through the rearview it looks like a painting of my city someone put there to cheer me up. Which it does, sort of, when I'm not sniffling.

I think there are many, many worse problems to have. I've even had some of them this month. Just listing these makes me positively cheerful. Also, the prospect of getting a surprise Roo at any time helps with the good cheer.

Comments

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

Gregarious introvert! It's me! Thank you for that phrase.

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

The next person who lays the "Only children have problems because they're only children" trip on me is going to meet with a serious smack-down.

Oh? Really? We can't share and can't *not* show off and have never lost the illusion of central position--really? And this is all because... we didn't have an older sibling who gave us an inferiority complex or a younger sibling who we tortured to nearly psychopathic excess? Because we never had unfair comparisons thrust into our face at crucial developmental points that forever made us overly sensitive about some issue that only children aren't allowed to comment on because we're selfish?

Yeah. Whatever. I had cousins, and neighbors, and heck, parents and pets and friends, and from all that, I learned to share. I had family issues like everyone has family issues, and at some point, I learned that I am not, in fact, the center of the universe...

And in conclusion, I'll just point out that the worst only-child personalities I've ever encountered have resided squarely in the bodies of people who had siblings.

Gar.

(I do intend to work all this out with a story one day. It even has a title: "All the Only People." I just need a plot, and y'know, characters.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmm. Yes and no: I think that a lot of people fit fairly classic patterns for their birth order, but that those patterns are broad enough that it doesn't tell you much about the individual to know their birth order. They could be an oldest child control freak, or an oldest child relaxed people-person, or an oldest child driven introvert, or...yeah. I think it does affect a few traits, statistically speaking, but how those play into the entire rest of the personality is extremely variable.

Many of our friends are oldests and onlies. Not all, and we don't dislike middles and youngests. But there are some pieces of commonality that do tend to pop up.

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah. Commonality. I, for example, like oldest, onlies and middles and have rarely met youngests I get along with really well.

However, I assume that's the coincidence that comes from being able to sort the entire population into 4 groups. And I'm not prejudiced against youngests, and I certainly don't make sweeping generalizations about them. (I could though, but I know better.)

I give it about as much credence as astrology, which sorts the same population into 12 groups. Gee... (does math) yep, 80% of the people I have dated (or unrequitedly not-dated, heh) are Tauruses. Both of my parents were. Uhm... all my closest friends are fellow Aries or Leos. Hm. Does it mean anything? Are all Tauruses stubborn? Every one I've loved so far. Does that mean anything? Nah. Just that I like stubborn people who can stand up to me. (Or don't have to stand up to me, but just let me break over them like a wave.) They just happen to be born in April and May.

Or so sez the skeptic within.

[pameladean]

Chattery is not a problem, only I am afraid to ask you to sit down because of the cat hair.

Once we have a check, and a lawn mower, sitting in the back yard will be possible.

I know what you mean about that view of downtown. I love it too. I wish I had not become addicted to California.

Pamela

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, if I start to get cat-snuffly, I will let you know. I can't yet read you or David well enough to know when you have had enough of me for the moment, but I do respond well to something like, "Okay, well, I have some things I'd like to get done this afternoon yet." Or even, "I like you, and now it is time for you to go." I used to do that to people a lot in college: "I like you very much, but please leave now, I'm tired/I have homework/etc."

Anyway, I didn't think chattery was a problem with social interaction so much as a problem with actually getting my butt out the door and back to my own work/chores. Not your problem but mine.

Teeth into

[aet.livejournal.com]

Oh, here are so mani topical titbits to bit into, but two are most important for me, often causing confusion and frustration:

1) I wonder, is it all-American belief that fun has to be relaxing or is it just Columbine? Or, may-be it is just me, being a too weak creature to live? In case of Columbine she has mentioned cross country skiing and reading literature in foreign languages as being too much work to be fun. But, for me, to be honest, certain effort is always part of any fun one can imagine. I DO get tired of having fun often.

7)Obviously for me "for my age" is not problem in the way you describe any more, but the general trend annoys me great deal. I want to get objective answer, not the "good for a woman" or "good for a foreigner" bullshit.

Re: Teeth into

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think you've got the wrong end of the stick entirely, Aet. Columbine can speak for Columbine's own position, but I can and do quite thoroughly enjoy work of more than one type and entertainments/pursuits that require effort (which, to me, is somewhat different: a many-mile hike takes effort but is not what I would call work). But I'm not using "pleasant" and "enjoyable" as synonymous with "fun" here. Nor do I believe fun has to be relaxing or I wouldn't be talking about the times when it isn't.

However, something like going out into a crowd of people to see a play is great fun if the play is good. It's almost never work-related. It's frivolous. It is also something that keys me up and makes me nervous, because, well, crowd of people. And the problem is that I then have to set aside time to recover from my recreations. Which seems like a lot of time devoted to things of no particular utility, because I have not yet corrected the mindset that says that relaxing is not a very useful thing for me to do.