Orson Scott Card disappoints me

It's pretty sad when people you used to respect turn out to be complete nutjobs.

Take, for instance, Orson Scott Card, a science fiction writer and author of Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, the Homecoming saga, and dozens of other novels and short stories.

Today I read something he wrote a couple of weeks ago, published in the Mormon Times.

Apparently, Mr. Card is advocating the overthrow of the United States government and/or individual state governments over the issue of gay marriage. As in, encouraging taking up arms against the authorities if gay marriage is legalized. He really and truly views homosexuality as that much of a threat to whatever utopia he thinks he's living in.

Now, if you, personally, aren't comfortable with the idea of homosexuality, that is your own private prerogative to feel that way. But the vitriol and hate this man spews under the guise of "logic" are way beyond the pale.

Some choice quotes:

No matter how sexually attracted a man might be toward other men, or a woman toward other women, and no matter how close the bonds of affection and friendship might be within same-sex couples, there is no act of court or Congress that can make these relationships the same as the coupling between a man and a woman.

He really doesn't do a very good job at all of explaining exactly HOW he thinks a homosexual relationship is fundamentally different from a heterosexual one.

Married people are doing something that is very, very hard -- to combine the lives of a male and female, with all their physical and personality differences, into a stable relationship that persists across time.

He declares this as if homosexuals could not achieve the same end result were they allowed to marry.

Only when the marriage of heterosexuals has the support of the whole society can we have our best hope of raising each new generation to aspire to continue our civilization -- including the custom of marriage.

When has the marriage of heterosexuals ever NOT had the support of society? That's what society has always been about! He seems to believe, like a frighteningly high percentage of other people in this country, that legalizing gay marriage is somehow a threat to heterosexual marriage. I have never been able to figure this one out. How in the world would letting my friends Jim and Bill get married be any kind of threat to my marriage to Doc? How is that even an issue?

In an era when birth control and abortion make childbearing completely optional, the number of out-of-wedlock births shows the contempt that many women have for marriage. Yet most of these single mothers still demand that the man they chose not to marry before having sex with him provide financial support for them and their children -- while denying the man any of the rights and protections of marriage.

The same old argument: placing all the blame on the woman. Does he not recognize that the man also chose not to marry the woman before he had sex with her, and shares equally in the responsibility for the outcome? It takes TWO people to make a baby; it takes TWO people to decide to get married. He makes it sound like women are involved in a conspiracy to deliberately get knocked up, refuse proposals of marriage, and then (horrors!) stick the man with partial financial responsibility for the children he helped create!

Society gains no benefit whatsoever (except for a momentary warm feeling about how "fair" and "compassionate" we are) from renaming homosexual liaisons and friendships as marriage.

Patently untrue. Society gains enormous benefit from embracing many different types of people and many different types of relationships. Also, the implication that homosexuals are not capable of anything deeper than friendships and sexual liaisons is unbelievably offensive.

If America becomes a place where our children are taken from us by law and forced to attend schools where they are taught that cohabitation is as good as marriage, that motherhood doesn't require a husband or father, and that homosexuality is as valid a choice as heterosexuality for their future lives, then why in the world should married people continue to accept the authority of such a government?

And here you have it. Not only the "C" word (that's "choice"), but the call to arms.

I have read and enjoyed a dozen or more of Mr. Card's novels and short stories, and have always thought he was a fantastic writer who created extremely interesting universes and characters. That hasn't changed. He is a very good writer with a rich imagination. My friend Chris pointed out that Ender's Game was laden with homoerotic overtones; Card has incorporated gay characters into his novels on several occasions and has never portrayed them as anything other than normal. Which makes it all the more interesting that his personal feelings apparently run so counter to that.

For about two seconds I considered returning all my Card novels to Half Price Books and refusing to read any more of his works. But then I reminded myself that people are really complex and have many sides to them. I can like someone for one thing, and dislike them for another. I don't think it's fair or open-minded to completely dismiss a person you previously admired based on something largely unrelated to what you admired about them. Just because he has some really scary and fucked up ideas doesn't mean that -- ooh, undoesies! -- I suddenly dislike all the novels that I previously liked. That isn't fair, and it isn't true.

I still think he's a good writer. But I no longer respect him. And I find that sad.

And that brings me to my solution to this problem. I have the answer to the "marriage crisis."

I think one of the big issues with marriage is that there are two sides to it: the legal side, and the religious/"in God's eyes" side. As it stands, we've kind of mixed up the two; the state meddles in the church, and the church meddles in the state. We need to separate these two sides, call them different things, and let people opt for one or both.

Any two consenting adults -- man and woman, man and man, woman and woman -- can apply for a Civil Union License. The Civil Union License would afford these two people the exact same legal benefits and protections that marriage does now. Declare an oath, sign some paperwork, and you are done.

"Marriage," on the otherhand, becomes the domain exclusively of religion. People who have their Civil Union Licence can also opt to have a marriage ceremony, to make it official in God's eyes, or whatever their reasoning. "Marriage" itself can retain all the ritual, religious significance, and pomp and circumstance that it enjoys today. Individual religious groups can set their own rules on who can get married and under what circumstances -- just as they do today. But now you've taken the government out of the mix.

So you can choose to get married, which is a religious ceremony only. And you can ALSO choose to obtain a Civil Union License, which takes care of the legal side of things.

I'm sure Mr. Card would argue that my solution has nothing to do with what he sees as the problem (continued reproduction of our species -- of course within the confines of heterosexual marriage). I think that if he's really worried about our species continuing to reproduce, he should remind himself that there are six billion plus people on this planet and we seem to be doing a really overly find job of continuing society, despite the presence of gays, lesbians, and even non-childbearing heterosexuals. I'm not sure how he thinks that "protecting" marriage from The Gays is somehow going to solve things.

Olympic opening ceremonies: Sad moment

I watched the Olympics opening ceremonies last Friday night, and was dutifully impressed, just as the Chinese government planned for me to be. I didn't find out until later that some of those spectactular fireworks that we saw on TV were faked, and that the little girl who sang the Chinese National Anthem inside the stadium was actually lip-syncing, although she likely didn't realize it.

The saddest part of all: The little girl who actually sang the song was deemed, at the highest levels of the ruling Communist Party, not cute enough to appear in person in the stadium. Instead, they recorded her voice and had the cuter but less talented girl THINK she was singing to a billion people. All in the name of "national interest" ... everything must appear flawless.

I thought the Olympics were supposed to be about raw talent, not superficial appearance.

Sad.

Hey, baby, you want some of this?

About ten years ago, I was jogging on a winding, tree-lined street in the Bluffview area of Dallas. Mind you, I didn't live IN Bluffview; my house was a small 2-bedroom in the "servants' quarters" neighborhood adjacent to these enormous houses on hilly, wooded lots. The houses were set so far back from the road, behind screens of trees, that the road was almost like a secluded path through a forest -- not like Dallas at all -- which is why I liked jogging there so much.

On this particular weekend afternoon, I was running on the opposite side of the road (so I could clearly see cars coming around the tight curves in this area), minding my own business, mind wandering as it does when one runs, when suddenly something hit me, HARD, from behind. I stumbled to catch myself from falling flat on my face, and as I recovered I realized that what had hit me was a man's hand, sticking out his car window, ON PURPOSE. He and his buddies had driven on the wrong side of the road, rolled down their window, and reached out to hit me on the butt. As I stood there furiously trying to figure out what to do, he drove on... very slowly, looking in his rearview mirror the whole time to gauge my reaction, and laughing.

I cannot even tell you how frightened I was, and repulsed, and angry, and all sorts of emotions. I worried that he might stop, or turn around and come back, and do who knows what to me -- kidnapping, rape, and murder came to mind. I was alone on a road that wasn't high-traffic. Luckily I was only a short distance from a major road so I turned and ran back that way as quickly as I could, before the man could decide to come after me. Luckily, he didn't. He was just in it for thrills. Did he think he was paying me a compliment? That I would be flattered that he chose ME to assault?

When I'm out in the neighborhood walking, or really by myself on any public street, I often get catcalled by men driving by. It never happens when I'm with Doc, but it happens frequently when I'm by myself or with another woman. I have never, EVER mistaken those rude comments and yells as flattery. EVER. It's not sexual in nature; it is a verbal assault based on a need to control. It's a little scary sometimes. I always carefully watch the make and model of vehicle, and try to quickly change my route as soon as the car is out of sight, in case they try to come back.

Which is why the title of this article I read on CNN made me angry:

From a CNN article titled Catcalling: creepy or a compliment?:

"Being in a public space with a strange man who is being sexually aggressive is potentially dangerous," [New York filmmaker Maggie] Hadleigh-West added....

"When a man catcalls you, you don't know if it will end at that point or if it could escalate to assault," [Kimberly Fairchild, assistant professor of psychology at Manhattan College] added....

On the other hand, some women appreciate the attention in certain cases, like Jessica, a 31-year-old health-care educator in Los Angeles who declined to use her last name to protect her privacy.

"Yeah, it's objectifying and all, but you know, if I walked down the street and didn't have men looking me up and down and catcalling, I'd think, 'Boy, I must really be getting old and dumpy,' " she said.

Now granted, this was the article's only mention of "catcalling is actually a compliment", and it's not a bad story otherwise, but the sensationalized headline made it seem like "ladies, you should be flattered... we'll tell you why in this story!" (But I digress; sensationalized news headlines that have almost nothing to do with the story content is another rant for another day.)

A very astute response to the CNN article:

The thing about conflating cat-calling or other forms of domination with male sexual desire is that this is a gross insult to men who can tell the difference between “I’d like to see her smiling at me with pleasure” and “I’d like to see her crying in fear of my mighty manhood that needs constant reinforcing”.

I couldn't have said it better myself. It has nothing to do with sex; it's about control and dominance. It's frightening, insulting, and an affront to the majority of men who are kind and decent people.

Where Does Your Mind Wander To?

Thanks to Bonnie for this link! This 12-question quiz measures how you compare to the average person in terms of daydreaming. Here are my results, which should not exactly be news to anyone who knows me.

• You spend more time than the average individual ‘lost in thought’ or mind-wandering.
• You use your mind-wandering time wisely! You spend more time than the average individual planning or problem-solving while daydreaming.
• You spend more time than the average individual thinking about unresolved issues while mind-wandering (i.e., you are a problem-solver).
• Your daydreams involve more visual imagery than the average daydreamer. You tend to ‘see’ people, places and events ‘in your head’.
• Your daydreams are more creative than most.

So THAT'S why Katy stares off into space all the time! She's problem-solving!

Belize: Day Six

This morning I did not have any adventures planned, yet I got up early anyway. This whole trip I have been getting up before 8 a.m., on my own. I suppose it's probably largely due to the fact that we have been going to sleep somewhat early (11 p.m. or so).

Doc went diving in the morning, along with Brett, Kurt, and Megan. I think that he's really enjoying it. The divemasters have cancelled the trips to Blue Hole and Glover's Reef, so all the divers are just staying on the barrier reef this week, which I guess is still probably pretty damn cool. I puttered around this morning taking pictures, and then took the laptop to the lobby so I could upload some of my photos to flickr.

Even though I technically have an internet connection while here, I haven't really been using it as much as I thought I would have. I mean, I know I've mentioned getting online for three or four days now, but when you compare it to my normal online schedule (averaging about 70 hours per week, I would say, between work and home), it's nothing. The connection is slower than molasses in January, but I don't know that that is necessarily a factor. I have not missed TV at all, I have not once had the urge to make a phone call, and I also haven't wanted to listen to any music on my iPod. It's weird how my nearly-total disconnect from the fast-paced hurry hurry world of my normal life, where I constantly attempt to absorb as much audiovisual information as possible, happened so quickly and easily.

Maybe that means that when the apocalypse comes, I will survive because I adapt well, and society will value me because I have skills that don't require electricity.

Speaking of activities that don't require electricity, later in the morning I sat in a beach chair in the shade of a palm tree and watched for Doc coming home from sea.

Once he arrived safely back on land, we ate lunch (I had a mini pizza with bacon... WAY too much bacon, and y'all know about how much bacon it would have to be for me to say something like that).

At 2 p.m. we hopped in a van and drove several miles out to a spot on the Sittee River, where we disembarked and got into canoes and kayaks. The kayaks were not the kind where you basically enclose your lower half inside the boat, and if you tip over you'd better hope you can right yourself quickly; these much less scary "sit-on-top" kayaks were very flat plastic boats with flat areas to sit on, seat backs to hold you in place, and little grooves for your feet. The canoes looked much safer, but we were told that the kayaks, despite their smallness and flatness, were actually more stable. So Doc and I decided to be adventurous and climbed into a blue kayak.

Which immediately started to fill with water. We were both horrorstricken by how fucking enormous we must be that we could sink a kayak between the two of us. We were both on the verge of scrambling back out onto the dock, but they told us that they were actually SUPPOSED to partially fill with water -- that's just how these kayaks worked. We were not entirely convinced, because there didn't seem like there was much kayak to fill before the damn boat was completely underwater. But we decided to give it a go. So we paddled down the river, with a few inches of dirty parasite-filled tropical river water sloshing around our legs, feet, and unmentionables.

Not that I was paranoid about, you know, parasites and my nether regions. Not at all.

We paddled down a short stretch of river, shaded by graceful tall trees and under a nice little bridge that I was almost too tall to fit under -- Doc paddling for power, and me using mine to steer. And then we emerged onto a very large pond, in full tropical sunlight. The temperature zoomed up into the high 90s, and I started to sweat. As far as we could see down the river, there was no shade at all. I began to think that this was all a Very Bad Idea; it was miserably hot and still and we only had a little bit of water between the two of us, and I had no clue how far we had to go before we reached the pickup site.

I began having flashbacks to the day that we canoed down the Brazos river for six hours in 100-plus degree heat, with only one gallon of water for four people (us plus Ginger and Kathryn, I think). The river was so low that we had to walk our canoes through the shallows for much of the time, and poor Doc had a screamer of a cluster headache and was getting badly sunburnt.

So I was having all these visceral memories of the Canoe Trip From Hell, and my mood plunged. I wanted to get this stupid adventure over with as quickly as possible, and so I attempted to paddle more quickly so we could get ahead of the pack and zoom on ahead. Doc was much calmer (probably actually enjoying himself!) and kept telling me that I didn't need to paddle so quickly, or at all, and basically to just stop and look around a little. I kept thinking, snakes, mosquitos, heat, sunburn, headache; I was miserable.

Then, around the next bend, we saw it: a rain squall coming up the river, headed right for us! It was wonderful. We got soaking wet, and the temperature dropped. My mood immediately improved. I began to slow my frantic paddling and enjoy looking at the huge orange iguanas in the trees and on the banks, the turtles, birds, and various other wildlife. Kathryn even saw a crocodile. Luckily I did not, nor did I see any water snakes.

After about two hours, we reached a little dock near where the river emptied into the Caribbean Sea, and we hauled our canoes up to the trailer, got into the van, and went back to Hamanasi.

At dinner, I wasn't feeling all that well and I couldn’t eat much. I didn't even want dessert. This may have been partly due to me feeling extremely uncomfortable because our dinner group had expanded at the last minute to something like 14 people, and the Hamanasi staff was balking at putting together a table that big when we hadn't let them know ahead of time (and rightly so), and members of our party began moving tables around on their own and insisting that Doc and I not eat dinner by ourselves, which we were attempting to do in an attempt to alleviate the clusterfuck. After nearly a week of social interaction, I also felt like my supply of social energy was running dangerously low at this point. (I am, after all, an introvert and I need lots of alone time.)

Our group had made plans to go out to a little bar in Hopkins Village called King Kassava, to have drinks and hang out with some of the Hamanasi staff and village locals, and up to this point I had planned to go, even though I wasn't necessarily looking forward to it (me + strangers + alcohol = much awkwardness on my part). However, I realized during dinner that I was becoming more and more anxious about the prospect of going, and after a discussion with Doc, who understood that I was feeling anxious and graciously agreed to do whatever I wanted to do, I told everyone that I wasn't feeling well and had used up all my social energy for the week. Of course there were protests ("we'll come back as early as the earliest person wants to come back!" -- it never works that way, and I said so) but I held my ground. We came back to the room and watched a movie instead.

I think I made the right decision. Kathryn told me later that I would definitely have been uncomfortable at King Kassava -- she very much felt like an outsider there, and if she did, I certainly would have, even more so.

I wonder sometimes if maybe I'm developing an anxiety disorder. I often am terrified at the prospect of going to places where there will be people I don't know, especially when I don't know how or if I'll be able to escape.

welcome to the 1950s

I had a flat tire yesterday. My dad noticed it as he was taking some stuff out to their car -- he and Mom were getting ready to drive back to Houston after spending Thanksgiving with us. My spare was also flat, so Dad drove me and the tire to Firestone to get a new one. I spoke to the guy behind the counter, showed him the paperwork from when I bought the tire only 2 years ago, took him out to Dad's car to retrieve the flat tire, and stood with him while he determined whether it could to be fixed or if I'd need a new one.

A few minutes later, he came back to give me the verdict... and he spoke directly to my father the entire time. My father, who up until now had been standing in the background.

It's not like this guy was old enough to have remembered a time before the women's movement either.

when the most exotic spice was paprika...

This weekend my mom brought me some cookbooks from the late 1800s and early 1900s that she doesn't want to take with her when she moves next summer. Old cookbooks fascinate me, I guess because it gives you a real sense of what everyday life was like. It's interesting to learn what types of ingredients were available (or not available or not yet invented or I have no freakin' clue what something is) and especially what was common knowledge at the time, which you can deduce by noticing what techniques are and aren't explained. And the vocabulary was so different! Words like quickset, mercurochrome, black-draught, whiting, table sauce, farina-kettle seemed to be common usage.

Women by and large knew how to cook because they had to. (Ruffled feather disclaimer: I'm sure that men were certainly capable and some were happy to cook as well). Not only was cooking generally thought of as "woman's work" and most women were homemakers, but almost all meals were either eaten at home or packed and carried. Today, by contrast, even for someone like me who loves to cook and probably does so more than the average person, I eat my meals out probably 25% of the time.

Anyway, my point is that because it was expected that the audience for a cookbook would already know all the basics and many of the advanced methods, nobody wasted the paper or ink on detailed instructions for each recipe. So you get things like a list of ingredients (some with precise weights or volumes, and some with "an egg-sized piece of" or "fifteen cents' worth" or "enough" as the amount) with the lone instruction: "Bake."

We're spoiled today by the variety and quality of ingredients. American women of 100 years ago didn't have as much to work with. And boy, was Jello a favorite.

Crust Coffee
(from "For the Invalid's Tray" section of Aunt Jane's New and Revised Cook Book and Suggestions for Farm Home and Stock, circa 1929)
Toast bread on both sides until a deep brown. Place in a bowl, pour over 1 cup boiling hot water. As soon as it is cool enough to drink add cream and sugar if desired. This has been known to quench thirst.

What could be better than toast tea, suspected of quenching thirst? Hmm... how about fish jello?

Jellied Tuna
(also in Aunt Jane's, but surprisingly not under an "Emetics" heading)
1 package McConnon's Lemon Quickset
1 cup boiling water
1 cup cold water, less 2 tablespoons
2 tablespoons vinegar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup tuna fish, flaked
1 cup peas, fresh cooked or canned
2 tablespoons pimiento, finely chopped
1/2 cup mayonnaise

Dissolve Quickset in the boiling water. Stir in and dissolve 3 heaping tablespoons sugar. In a measuring cup put 2 tablespoons of vinegar and fill the cup with cold water. Add to Quickset mixture. Add salt, also chill. When slightly thickened, fold in remaining ingredients. Turn into individual molds. Chill until firm. Garnish with additional mayonnaise.

Also in Aunt Jane's, a handy-dandy first aid guide. Did you know that in case of cinders in the eye, you should rub soft paper up like a lamp-lighter and wet the tip to remove, or use a medicine dropper to draw it out? (The word "cinders" always reminds me of the book series "The Great Brain" by John D. Fitzgerald, that I absolutely loved when I was a kid.) Or, if the cinders prove to be too much, "tests of death" include: Hold mirror to mouth. If living, moisture will gather. Push pin into flesh – if dead the hole will remain, if alive it will close up.

The Rumford Common Sense Cook Book, circa 1930 and published by Rumford Chemical Works, makers of Rumford Baking Powder, insists that for school lunches, "boys like plain folding lunch boxes, girls prefer daintiness of equipment." Apparently kids in the 1930s liked to eat sandwiches made from sardines with plenty of lemon juice. I'm sure that smelled fantastic by the time noon rolled around!

Tamales, acccording to The Good Eats Cook Book by the Housekeepers of Kent, Wash., circa 1900, consisted of green pepper halves stuffed with a mixture of tomatoes, bread crumbs, ketchup, and "table sauce," tied with a string, and boiled for a half hour. Or just stuff them with meat and bake. The inside front cover of this little recipe pamphlet had an ad for Look's Bazaar, with a recipe for a "Modern Up-To-The-Minute 'Woman'". What does this 'Woman' consist of, you may ask?

Take dainty undermuslins, add to this the best hosiery made (THE TOPSY HOSE) add two parts corset (The ROYAL WORCESTER of course) one for Sunday and one for common, and mix thoroughly. Then take a generous measure of shirt waists (you never can have too many), add to this a couple of nice silk petticoats (The Morris Brand) and a mixture of outside skirts (or if desired, the materials for them can be supplied by us). For a frosting or finishing touch add a few collars and belt pins, hair ornaments, fancy collars, head scarfs (ribbons may be used if not over 30). Mix all these parts thoroughly and you have the MODERN UP-TO-THE-MINUTE "WOMAN"

Sixteen layers of clothing, some whalebone rib compression (hey, who needs to breathe, really?), two hours later, and I'm ready to start my Washing Monday!

Good times.

fahrenheit four-fifty-something or other

In a textbook case of irony that is likely going completely unnoticed by the parties in question, a father and daughter in Conroe are attempting to get Ray Bradbury's classic novel "Fahrenheit 451" banned from the library. Not only are they attempting to ban a story about a society where it is illegal to read books and think or speak freely, they attempted to do so during National Banned Books Week.

Now, I know the child is only 15 years old, but her statement still kills me:

"The book had a bunch of very bad language in it," Diana Verm said. "It shouldn't be in there because it's offending people. ... If they can't find a book that uses clean words, they shouldn't have a book at all."

Although it's not too hard to see where she gets it from:

"It's just all kinds of filth," said [her father] Alton Verm, adding that he had not read "Fahrenheit 451." ... He said the book's material goes against their religious beliefs.

Nevermind that students may always choose to read an alternative book to any assigned reading. The Verms seem to think that their religious beliefs should be applied to everyone.

My new social networking tool

Well, I've finally given in. I've joined a social network.

I've been resisting it for years, saying that I don't need it, that I already have enough friends, that I didn't want crazy strangers knowing anything about me. I tried mySpace, Friendster, Tribe, and Meetup, and somehow just wasn't satisfied.

Now I've found the perfect social networking tool that seems like it was created just for me: isolatr. Join me and be my friend today!

Podcasts are for extroverts!

Man, I do not know how people create podcasts.

I don't mean technically... That is easy.

I mean, how does someone talk for an hour at a time? Or even ten minutes without stopping? I just don't get it.

I guess people do it all the time -- teachers, or radio show hosts, for example. If you're talking about a specific topic that is very important to you, and that you know a lot about, I guess maybe it's not that hard to do.

But for me... I don't think I could do it. I'm just not that much of a talker.

I think that everyone (or maybe just most people) have a constant internal running monologue in their heads... Things that we think about, little rabbit holes our minds wander down, rehashing conversations, making to-do lists, thinking up great ideas, etc. And I think that the people who can podcast successfully are the people who just naturally tend to make that internal monologue external. We all know people who will just talk and talk and talk, vocalizing what seems like every random thought that pops into their heads to anyone who will listen, or often just to themselves when they think no one else is listening. A real stream of consciousness. These people, the extroverts, are successful podcasters.

Rereading that, it seems like I'm stating the utterly obvious. Oh well.

This "duh" moment was brought to you tonight by my brain after listening to Radio Free Burrito (Wil Wheaton's podcast). Yes, for those of you who think that name sounds familiar, he was Gordy in Stand By Me and Wesley Crusher on ST:TNG. He still does acting work, but he mostly writes for a living now, and keeps a blog and does podcasts. He is about my age and is married with two teenagers, seems very easygoing, and genuinely interested in interacting with the people who read his writing. He seems very much like a normal guy, someone who might live down the street from you, who does stuff with his kids and goes to the grocery store and watches TVand mows the lawn. It is very refreshing to read his work; he is an excellent writer!

i'm not arrogant, i'm just an introvert

thanks to brett for the link to this fantastic article, "caring for your introvert: the habits and needs of a little-understood group."

...introverts are people who find other people tiring.

Extroverts are energized by people, and wilt or fade when alone. They often seem bored by themselves, in both senses of the expression. Leave an extrovert alone for two minutes and he will reach for his cell phone. In contrast, after an hour or two of being socially "on," we introverts need to turn off and recharge. My own formula is roughly two hours alone for every hour of socializing. This isn't antisocial. It isn't a sign of depression. It does not call for medication. For introverts, to be alone with our thoughts is as restorative as sleeping, as nourishing as eating. Our motto: "I'm okay, you're okay—in small doses."

in the article and a subsequent interview, he talks about how to go about life as an introvert in a world where the majority of people are extroverts.

he also talks about the difference between being shy and being introverted, which i have to admit hadn't occurred to me before. being shy means that social situations make you anxious, nervous, and/or awkward, whereas introverts generally don't necessarily get anxious in social situations, but do get tired out rather quickly.

i think i'm both.

when we have parties at our house, at least 2 or 3 times during the party i come upstairs to "check on the cats"... which i am really doing, but it's also my way of getting away from everybody for 5 or 10 minutes so i can recover and go back down and face it again. i don't mean "face it" like it's an ordeal or whatever, but i do get mentally exhausted a lot faster than an extroverted person would.

Are introverts arrogant? Hardly. I suppose this common misconception has to do with .... our lack of small talk, a lack that extroverts often mistake for disdain. We tend to think before talking, whereas extroverts tend to think by talking, which is why their meetings never last less than six hours. "Introverts," writes a perceptive fellow named Thomas P. Crouser, in an online review of a recent book called Why Should Extroverts Make All the Money? .... "are driven to distraction by the semi-internal dialogue extroverts tend to conduct. Introverts don't outwardly complain, instead roll their eyes and silently curse the darkness."