Humpday Linkdump - October 14, 2009
First up: FOOD PORN! If you like reading about food, check out the The Bitten Word. If you just like looking at food, check out their Flickr photostream.
YUMMEH.*
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An oldie but a goodie: Caring for Your Introvert.
Do you know someone who needs hours alone every day? Who loves quiet conversations about feelings or ideas, and can give a dynamite presentation to a big audience, but seems awkward in groups and maladroit at small talk? Who has to be dragged to parties and then needs the rest of the day to recuperate? Who growls or scowls or grunts or winces when accosted with pleasantries by people who are just trying to be nice?
If so, do you tell this person he is “too serious,” or ask if he is okay? Regard him as aloof, arrogant, rude? Redouble your efforts to draw him out?
If you answered yes to these questions, chances are that you have an introvert on your hands—and that you aren’t caring for him properly.
Many of my best friends through the years were introverts (and, oddly, all but ONE were left-handed - sorry, but I find that fascinating), and as an extrovert, I was often frustrated by how “weird” they were. The man I lived with between husbands was an extreme introvert, and the differences in our approach to and affection for social situations was likely one of the main things that killed our relationship. (If I recall correctly, he was the one who first introduced me to this article. I, clearly, didn’t get the hint.) As I get older, wiser, and more mellow, I’m a little less antagonistic toward my beloved introverts. (I think.)
Think you know the facts about hunger in America? Take the quiz, you might be surprised at what you learn.
Dictionary-dot-com’s Word of the Day for Tuesday, October 13, 2009 was triskaidekaphobia, fear of the number 13. At first I thought, gee, they should have saved that for Friday the 13th… and then it occurred to me that there might be a specific word for fear of Friday the 13th. And there is! (Of course, in the net-haunts I used to frequent, most folks LOVED Friday the 13th.)
There’s also a word for the fear of the number 666, a phobia I was introduced to years ago when I lived at 666 Smith Street. When I told a friend my address, she gasped and shrank back in her seat. The only thing missing from her melodrama was the smelling salts and fluttering handkerchief.
“Has anything… WEIRD… ever happened at your house?”
“Nooooo…” I said, truly confused. “It’s just a number.” I don’t think I was even aware, at the age of 12, of the superstitions surrounding the number - but that’s because I led such a sheltered life and rarely watched anything resembling a horror movie.
Years later, while working the drive-thru at McDonald’s, I had a customer who refused to pay for an order that totalled $6.66. He added on two-apple-pies-for-a-dollar, just to avoid making a deal with the devil.
Several of the 800 numbers associated with the hotel company I used to work for had “666″ somewhere in the sequence. I remember thinking, “Doesn’t that put a damper on their sales? Some people won’t call a business if there’s a 666 or a 13 in the phone number.” But the company seemed to fair well enough. In the interest of being discreet (and not screwing up my employment references), I will kindly keep my opinion about whether the Satanic connotations are warranted.
Why am I so obsessed with 666 today? Maybe because I started watching Rosemary’s Baby this morning. I like watching classic horror movies during the month of October to get “jazzed up” for Halloween. And since, as I mentioned before, I didn’t see many horror movies as a kid, I have to play catch up with my cultural references. Next on my list: The Omen.**
As an aside: Good Lord, Mia Farrow is a beautiful woman. I mean, GOOD LORD.
Watching Rosemary’s Baby makes me think about the past and present scandals surrounding Roman Polanski, as well as Farrow’s highly publicized split from Woody Allen in the 1990’s. (I was a People magazine addict at the time, so I remember reading all about it and being utterly horrified.) As an adult, I find both men’s stories intriguing not just for the prurient subject matter, but because of how quickly and fully the general public passed judgement on them, and because of how deeply intertwined good and evil are in human nature.
Many people have dismissed Polanski’s actions with the phrase, “But he’s an artist.” What that means, I’m not sure. Perhaps that creative people are more likely to be a bit disturbed? I won’t argue that in the least. That art excuses sexual predation? Some people must believe that, or otherwise neither of these men would still have a career. Outside of all those tricky-icky moral arguments, though, is the most amazing thing: even really bad people do really wonderful, beautiful things. Or is it that very good people do very awful things? I don’t know.***
J. Lee Grady’s Fire in my Bones is the only Charismatic/Evangelical/Fundamentalist Christian blog that I regularly read and enjoy, because he always tempers his criticism of secular culture with grace and humility. He’s the kind of person I can “agree to disagree” with. However, his column this week about polygamy unsettles me a bit. He’s using the same marriage-is-for-one-man-and-one-woman-only argument that’s used countless times gay marriage, while completely ignoring one very important point. The Bible does not consistently portray the one-man-one-woman covenant marriage as the only option.
Now, I understand that the issues of gay marriage and polyamory can’t really be discussed together like appleas and apples. I also understand that folks who believe it’s important to hold up heterosexual marriage as the best practice and the only legally sanctioned one have many different reasons for feeling as they do, and that theologically, it can’t be reduced to just “the Bible tells me so.” For that reason, when a leading thinker and speaker in the Christian blogospher uses that very same, very thin, argument, I think we should call him out! Please, Mr. Grady, give me a better reason for opposing plural marriage.
Speaking of plural marriage, I think I need to start working through the seasons of Big Love. Thank goodness for Blockbuster Online!
* Someone recently told me that Food Porn = Pregnant Lady Torture, so I feel kind of bad about posting this, but… well, LOOK AT IT. I can’t NOT post pics of stuff that yummeh!
** The original, of course, because remakes usually, well, they usually SUCK.
*** You may remember that we’ve talked about this before.
