A Collection of Dreams

I'd hoped to have the next 2 installments of The Quest For Skye ready to post during wedding and honeymoon weeks, but nope, that didn't happen. So here's a stand-in blog until then. The Quest For Skye returns Friday, July 19.

I have the weirdest dreams, guys. The weirdest dreams EVER. Sometimes I talk to people who say, "Oh, I know what you mean, I have crazy dreams all the time! Like I'm in high school again, and I'm taking Spanish, but it's taught by my old math teacher! OH MAN, THAT WAS CRAZY!" And I just have to shake my head and say, "No, you really have no idea."

I thought I'd share a collection of some of the ones I've written down. Every so often I try to keep a dream blog but it never stays consistent, so these are spread throughout the last 10 years or so.

On with the dreams.

* * *

I dreamed that Vince Vaughn was wandering around my house being super obnoxious, and finally he got a hold of a bunch of those little fruit-shaped Wonka candies, but I knew that the orange ones were really child sedatives, and he ate a bunch of them and at first I freaked out but then I was so annoyed by him that I was like, "You know what? LET him eat child sedatives! At least it'll calm him down and shut him up!"

* * *

I dreamed that it was 3 days before my wedding, and I suddenly realized that, so I started jumping around excitedly. Suddenly I got notification from the government that because of a previous DUI, I wasn't allowed to jump. This sounded unreasonable to me, so I went to the courthouse and petitioned them to change that. They looked at my file and said, "Oh, that's really only supposed to apply to you not being allow to jump cars. Let's take that off your file and you'll be just fine."

* * *

I dreamed Philip Seymour Hoffman was doing a publicity stunt where he tried to pass himself off as an 8-year-old boy named Kenneth. He over to my house and played in our giant pool where he basically was a disgusting idiot and peed and vomited in it, but my parents wouldn't make him leave. They kept saying, "He's just a sad little boy with no family," and I was like, "He is NOT a sad little boy! He's PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN!"

* * *

I dreamed that I discovered that my friend Nate was somehow descended from a bowl of beans and rice and vegetables.

* * *

I dreamed that for the family reunion, we all went to go see a production of Cats. For some reason a guy I barely know from NLDC was there, too. When we got there and sat in our seats, the guy decided that the seats weren't good enough, so he stood up and yelled, "EVERYBODY MOVE DOWN SIX ROWS!" Surprisingly, everyone did, and we somehow ended up in the second row in some very good seats.

The play went on, but after the third song, the female lead stubbed her toe on something and proceeded to swear a bunch. My parents were both upset because all my little siblings were there. The actress apologized to all of us, although she did refer to us as "young hoodlum doodles." Then she began to cry about how terrible a show this was and how much she wished it were better. My uncle then helpfully told her all the things he didn't like about the show, but that she shouldn't feel bad about it. Somehow this did cheer her up and she managed to go on and finish the show.

* * *

I dreamed I was in an acting class. My professor turned on his cell phone and freaked out. I asked what was wrong, and it turns out he had ten new messages. "The last time that happened," he said, "they were calling to tell me that Billy Emu wasn't doing well in his education class... and the next day he was dead!" He was apparently very scared that someone else was dead.

Turns out in the end though, it was all just a student randomly calling because she was bored. My teacher was so relieved that nobody was dead that he ran up to her and hugged her and cried and said, "Don't ever do that to me again!"

* * *

I dreamed that Michael Jackson wanted to buy the church to use as his new dance studio. He and Janet Jackson were going to come and look over the church with their real estate agent, but every time he did, Nathan was sleeping on one of the pews. Michael thought that if he bought the church, Nathan would come with it, and he didn't want Nathan, so he refused to buy it. I was furious that Nathan had ruined the business deal. I remember there was a lot of sneaking around the church trying to stay out of people's way, and at one point I was trying desperately to wake Nathan up so he'd leave the sanctuary, but he refused to get up.

* * *

I had this very long dream. The earliest point in it I can remember is watching some weird reality show which was basically the American Idol judges just sitting around ranting about nothing in particular, telling anecdotes and stuff. Simon talked about this TV review paper he was a part of in England, called TTTRNA, which apparently stood for "Don't Let This Fashion Turn Into Rubbish About Your Life," which was their slogan and basically asked them to stay objective in their reviewing.

When I saw that, I thought, "TTTRNA, if you pronounce that 'Turna' it rhymes with 'Smyrna.'" And then I had a conversation with Dad about Bennifer and Brangelina, except at this point in time apparently Brad had left Angelina to return to Jennifer Aniston. Dad said, "Well, that's such a coincidence, because this Anglican king named Mr. Smyrna had a dog that also left someone named Angelina for someone named Jennifer."

Then Seth said something about mangling and wrangling and how THEY rhymed (I was really into rhymes, apparently) and then all of a sudden he fell down and landed on his wrist. I said something like, "Well, let's hope your wrist doesn't just dangle now!" because I was playing with the rhyming some more. He held up his wrist and it did indeed just sort of dangle off to the side, indicating there was probably something wrong with it. He refused to believe it,however, and started doing push-ups to prove that he was okay. He didn't do very well, though. He said to me, "Some people have a hard time doing the bending thing with their hands," he said, referring to bending their elbows when they did a push-up. "But look, I can do it with no hands at all!" And he got down on his stomach and sort of scooted up and down and around, which I guess was supposed to be no-handed push-ups.

* * *

I dreamed I was in RinkChat, and Dave kept dropping these hints that he was going to blow up Sam and Leen. Everyone else thought it was a joke, but I somehow knew it was going to be true. They apparently lived in a town called Manhattakentondon... I remember because at one point Dave said, "Soon disaster will strike Manhattakentondonites."

* * *

I dreamed I was having a conversation about movies with Dad. I gave him my real-life revelation about Will Ferrell, how I keep thinking he's going to be really obnoxious and then seeing him in movies and he really isn't. To which Dad replies, "Did you hear that they released a family-friendly version of 'Elf' except they called it 'True Pump'?" I said, "...What?" And he started laughing and said, "Oh, it was just a pun. I'm making a joke."

* * *

I dreamed I was in our living room, which was filled with preschoolers, including Seth. He fell down and hurt his back and began crying a lot. I picked him up and asked, "Did you hurt your back?" and began pressing around on his back to find where he'd bumped it. He said, "No, my spine!" and screamed even louder. I tried to carry him across the room, but bumped his head on a doorway and he began screaming even louder.

Then I wasn't there anymore, but a military guy was, and he went to a phone and called someone who was apparently Seth's father. The father, who was also in the military, came down and asked what the problem was. The military baby-sitter responded, "Your son has a condition in which he's emotionally unable to react naturally to his physical surroundings. I suggest you take him to a psychiatrist." Seth's father just calmly took Seth and said, "Well, we'll see," and walked out the door, except as he did so, he smashed his face into the doorway.

* * *

I dreamed I was watching a play called Roxie. It starred Katharine Hepburn and some other famous actress named Audrey Umber, except they didn't show up until the very end. Then they did show up, and Katharine said, "Aren't you glad for all the new friends you've made today?" To which Audrey replied, yes, and began listing them all: "Billy, and Danny, and..." When she finished the list, Katharine said, "You forgot Roxie!" Audrey gasped and said, "Oh, dear! I'll try again." She repeated the entire list, stopping halfway through to say, "I'm trying not to forget Roxie!" but she forgot Roxie again . . . so she had to do the whole thing over again. This happened about three more times. Katharine just kept getting madder and saying things like, "Just spit it out!" I then read a review of this play, and someone said, "This is what I love about the old movie actresses. They can be funny without repeating the same thing over and over!"

* * *

I dreamed that my friend Christy's parents suddenly got really, really mad at me for something, although I didn't know what. I couldn't reason with them, so Mom and Dad decided to take them out to dinner and try to talk sense into them. I waited eagerly for Mom and Dad to get home, but when they did, they were storming around. They had a styrofoam box full of leftovers, and were throwing them all over the place. "Those people are just entirely unreasonable!" my mom said. "So we stole their food."

* * *

I dreamed I was five months pregnant and was talking with Jeanne (our church pianist), along with this other chick who was like nine months pregnant. looked at us and said, “Okay, which of you is closer to your due date?” and I said, “She is,” and Jeanne said, “Well, YOU’RE going into labor right now.” I said, “What?!” and she said, “Yes, I can see the baby moving inside you right now.” So I had the baby and then suddenly it was like six years later and I had like FOURTEEN KIDS and all I could think was, “What just happened?”

* * *

I dreamed I was at a youth retreat. I was standing around listening to the music, and one of the guys from the youth group came up and asked me if I wanted to dance. I said, "I don't know how."  He said, "Oh, it's okay, I'll teach you." So he took out this pamphlet of how to do all these different ballroom dances and started going over it with me in detail, except he wasn't content to stick with one dance, oh, no, he was like, "Okay, we'll do one step of the waltz, then we'll do one step of the tango, then the polka, and then the fiddle-dee-dee," and I was just getting very confused, as I had no idea what was going on. I kept thinking, "Can't I just learn one dance and then practice that one for a while?"

* * *

I dreamed Elizabeth, Bekah, and I were coming out of the store with bags of groceries and putting them in our car, which was parked in an alley behind the store. Mom was still in the store, Dad was fixing something in the alley behind the car. Elizabeth got behind the wheel. I warned her not to touch it, but she drove like four feet forward. I yelled at her, "You KNOW better than to try driving!!! You know you're not allowed to do that!" She replied, "Okay, I'll fix it," and drove four feet backward, except she went a bit crooked and drove over Dad's thumb. I began yelling, "ELIZABETH!! You drove over Dad's thumb!" Dad must have gone slightly nuts from the pain or something, because he then proceeded to stand up and smash his head through the wall of the building next to us. The wall wasn't very sturdy, it was pretty much just plaster, but still . . . he smashed his head through a wall.

Mom came out and we went home, where, needless to say, Dad wasn't doing very well. He was in more medical trouble from the smashing of his head through a wall than his thumb being run over by a car. Our solution was very simple. We cut a hole in our own house wall and had him sit there with his head in the hole. At one point I walked by and he pulled his head out and said, "I think it's working, I feel less dizzy now!"

As for Elizabeth, we decided it would be best if she moved out since she had caused the family so much pain, so she packed up her bag and took a train off somewhere.

* * *

I dreamed my friend Becky put a giant orange roadblock sign in my room. The sign read "TAMMIX". Then as B'qi was going to leave, she turned to me and said, "Warning! It grows!" and sprang out of my room, leaving me to wonder why she put a growing road sign in my room.

* * *

I dreamed we were sitting in the church building, and Pastor was doing his sermon. He starts projecting things on the wall as visual aids for his sermon or something. Except they're mostly gratuitous and unrelated. Like one is a picture of Junior Asparagus.

Another one is a clip from Blue's Clues, where Steve gets a gift from Blue. He says, "I really enjoy getting gifts. Do you enjoy giving love gifts? Do you enjoy giving love gifts to people you don't really like? Do you have to do that?" And the kids reply, "I don't know!" And he goes, "Well, think of it this way. If there's a circus in town, and you're going to give money to everyone in the circus, and you don't LIKE one person in the circus, well, you don't have to worry about it, because it all gets evened out."

* * *

I dreamed that I was married (not only that, I had kids) and I had some sort of elaborate plot to kill my husband so we could go on vacation. The plot involved loosening a nut in his car and hiding said nut in the chimney, and then suffocating my husband and hiding him near the car. But at the end I was foiled and we all went on vacation together anyway.

Well, that's a fun one to end on. You now all know that if Jacob is suffocated and hidden near a car with a nut gone from his car and being found in the chimney instead, I tried to kill him to go on vacation.

7 Wedding Planning Tips That Seem To Be Working For Me

So I'm just 3 days away from my wedding now. As a non-decorator, non-girly girl, non-anything-that-makes-planning-a-wedding-easier, this planning process has had a lot of weird moments. I'd like to take a second and offer the few things I have learned throughout this process... some good ways to keep your sanity that have worked for me so far.

1. Delegating is AWESOME. I did a lot of saying, "Hey! You are good at [X thing I am not good at]! Would you like to take care of that?" And it saved my sanity. Being able to hand off the food to one bridesmaid, the flowers to another, decorating ideas to a third... it lifted so much of the stress off me. And since I hardly ever have any opinions on girly things, it was awesome to be like, "YOU handle this! Do whatever you want!"

2. Work closest with the ones you love. This is going to be a stressful time, so surround yourself with people who are good for you during your stress and will never add to it. People who are high-maintenance drama queens the rest of the year are not likely to take a week off for your wedding, so think about whether you want to deal with that. At the height of your stress, are those working with you in your wedding going to ease your stress or make it worse?

3. Make sure you get some couple time with your guy the week of. It looks like in the latter half of the week, there could be seventeen people all staying in what will be Jacob's and my home. We've already determined that we're going to have to be intentional about spending some time together, whether that means walking the dog together in the morning or late night chats in the back yard or running errands separately. It'd be easy to get swept up in the friend-filled chaos of the week and hardly get to spend any time together at all, but I know it's going to be really important for us to spend time together so we can, in a way, center ourselves, calm down from the craziness, and just enjoy our time.

4. Don't ever browse wedding etiquette boards online. Seriously. I haven't a clue about wedding etiquette, so I browsed some of these, and saw comments like, "I thought it was very rude that the bride didn't personally address her save-the-dates" and "If you don't have a DJ your reception will be awful" and "I can't believe that bride chose summer-colored bridesmaids dresses for a winter wedding!" Suddenly, I felt like everyone would hate me if I goofed something. When I stopped reading them, I felt much better. The less you know about hugely ridiculous etiquette expectations that somebody somewhere might have, the happier you'll be.

5. Take as many pictures as possible. I am not good with photos, so I know I'll look back on this time and think, "I wish I had gotten more pictures." I have therefore instructed my sister Elizabeth (also my photographer - check out her Facebook page here) to pretty much follow me around the week leading up to the wedding and capture everything she can. I'd far rather have too many pictures than not enough.

6. Make it personal. Jacob and I have worked to incorporate as much of us into the wedding as we can, from our music choices to our board game centerpieces to our Doctor Who ushers to the Adventure Time figurines his wedding party is wearing to our decision to do unity Play-Doh instead of a unity candle. We wanted to make this day specific to us, so that anybody who went to our wedding would come away thinking not just, "That was a beautiful wedding," but, "That wedding was so them." Having so many reminders of our nerdiness and our favorite common interests really makes the day more about us and our love, rather than some abstract concept.

7. It's your wedding. Seriously. Do whatever you want. When it comes right down to it, this is the phrase that calms the wedding stress for me. If that means we're ignoring wedding traditions or etiquette or advice, so be it. Which means any of you wedding planning chicas out there can also ignore this whole post if you want. :-) In the end, this is my special day and Jacob's special day, and we're allowed to be a little selfish about it. We can include whoever we want, set it up however we want, and celebrate however we want. Nobody's allowed to get huffy or upset that we didn't do it the way they would have. This is our day. And we're going to do what we want with it, dang it! (Sometimes I really have to be that forceful about it in my mind before I can let go of the many "But what will people think if..." fears.)

So, yeah. It's going to be a good day. :-)

Movie Reviews by Jessie (Part 6)

(A quick side note - today my "Introverts and Online Interactions" post is being rerun on my mother's blog, Teaching What Is Good. Wander on over and leave comments so other people think, "Hmm, this person seems to have devoted followers. I should follow their blog too!" Or, well, you don't have to do any of that. But if you haven't read that post, check it out on my mom's blog today!)

I haven't done one of these in awhile. Let's see what else Jessie has to say about film.

Of Mice and Men - i hear that the book is really good and i want to read it and see this movie because i heard about it from LOST the most riveting and thrilling series on t.v. even though they will not be showing a new episode until February 7th and i mean that just totally SUCKS SO BAD.........................................................

I always get all my book and movie recommendations from TV shows.

Fantasia 2000 - music is so the bomb!!!!!

However, she only rated this one 2 1/2 stars, so I feel like music was not quite the bomb enough.

The Pagemaster - i actually saw that and i thought that it was so good and i mean i loved it because imean i love books and i love to read.

I'm not sure what to do with a recommendation like "You will like this movie if you like to read." What if you like to read but hate movies? Will you still like this movie?

Three to Tango - Matthew Perry is such a good actor and i mean i think that this movie is going to be really good and romantic and am totally be into it..................................................................................................

"I think this movie is going to be am totally be into it," huh? I am totally be into Jessie's reviews.

Garfield Holiday Celebrations - HOLIDAYS are totally my thing.

"SO YOU CAN'T HAVE THEM!"

Treasure Planet - ok i guess but i mean yea...................................................

This is some in-depth movie reviewing, right there. She has completely changed my mind about this movie.

Charlotte's Web 2: Wilbur's Great Adventure - the first one was better but i think that that GIRL needs to get an attitude adjustment because it took her long enough to realize that the piig was Wilbur.

That's right. If you don't recognize your pet pig, you need to fix your attitude, missy!

Welcome to the Dollhouse - well

...come to the Dollhouse?

Little Miss Sunshine - well it looks ok but a little too HIPPY for me. I mean look at the car on the cover. For goodness sakes i mean really.

These goshdarn young people with their hippie movies and hippie cars on the cover.

But I'm a Cheerleader - looks so much like a chick flick and i think that since i am a chick that i will like it

Jessie is the person goofing up all the demographics, liking chick flicks just on the basis of being a chick!

Casper's Haunted Christmas - i love any christmas movie and casper is the friendly ghost that everyone loves and i am not saying that all ghosts are mean but i am saying that all of them may not be nice.

Well, I was about to accuse her of buying into that ghost stereotype that all ghosts are mean, because that's just unfair to ghosts, but then she corrected herself, and all was well.

Looney Tunes: Back In Action - WOW and i am not sure in which way i am directing that WOW too?

Neither am I...

Powder - looks good but i think that it will probably have a typical jail story outline. if you can not guess or do not even now what at ypical jail outline is may GOD help you in the long run!!!!

Uh. Did Jessie just curse me?

The Adventures of Robin Hood - well i think that this version is so medieval and that the directors should stick to the story board of all the original classics.

I think she's expressing her approval for this movie, but sometimes it's really hard to tell.

All the Pretty Horses - well i think that most stories either are really dramatic and romantic or always teach a lesson. so i will give this movie a......................................................

I don't even know how to respond to this one. I just... I don't know. Jessie just ran me out of snark.

The Quest For Skye: Chapter 1

Well, well, well, J. L. Rothdiener, we meet again.

You all may remember him from his Christian book The Quest For Forgiveness, which I read a few months ago and was not a fan of. My friend Travis was highly amused with my... shall we say passionate ranting against the book, and offered to purchase the second book in Rothdiener's "The Quest For..." series, provided that I would snark it on my blog.

Challenge accepted.

The second book is called The Quest For Skye, and it is available for $2.99 on Kindle, so if you would like to purchase one and read along with me, please do. I only ask that if you spend money on it, that you also leave a review on Amazon when you've finished reading it. If you genuinely love it, then, um... I'm glad for you? But I can't possibly be the only one who sees this author's true lack of talent, and it would be nice to not be the only 1-star reviewer on both his books.

I hope to write something for the series every Friday. I figure I'll read it until I just can't take it anymore and have to put it down. We'll see how far I get today.

All right, I've read the synopsis, and it looks like it's going to be one of those plots I have a bit of a bias against anyway - "young child changes people's lives by being hopeful and inspirational." So, admittedly, I'll be working past that bias. However, there's some medicine and science involved in the story, which is going to be awesome, given the author's previously demonstrated lack of expertise with anything involving technical knowledge.

Let's get started.

The fury of the restless waves pounded the cliffs as the scientists fought desperately for a cure.

That's the opening sentence.

This is going to be a long journey.

Near the center of the island was a small hospital, a clinic with an experimental laboratory. To an outsider, the unusual nature of the lab's equipment might have suggested the lair of mad geniuses, bent on world domination, or the creation of some breathless monstrosity. But these were not characters in a horror movie. They were dedicated physicians and scientists, fighting against the clock - fervently searching for the cure to a certain disease before it stole more innocent lives... the lives of children.

This book is going to be a lot more fun if I just decide right now that I'm going to read the whole thing aloud in my most dramatic voice.

"Before it stole more innocent lives... the lives..."

(Insert thunder and lightning.)

"...of CHILDREN!"

We're told a team of researchers are on the brink of a breakthrough in "the medical field," and he throws some doctor babble at us about mixing up a "pharmaceutical surrogate of their own invention" and putting a radioactive microorganism in it. So that's cool, although we don't really know why or how this will save innocent lives... the lives of children.

We're introduced to our first character with a name:

Doctor Layland Leontiou, a Greek billionaire whose sole purpose in life was to combat childhood diseases.

*blink*

I really hope everyone in this book is clearly a character from a parody soap opera.

We meet Doctors Whitman (who is a nuclear physicist), Miller, Bowman, and Malinda, "the lone female in the group." Malinda is married to Doctor Layland Leontiou, though it's a little insulting that the only woman doing science is there because she's married to the Greek billionaire funding the science. Also, I dare you to say "Malinda Leontiou" three time fast.

Doctor Whitman explains that they're releasing an organism into another vial. If it's too slow, it will be "ineffective," but if it's too fast, things will EXPLODE. So that's fun.

Doctor Layland Leontiou is worried, but Malinda reassures him by telling him the computer will take care of the whole thing, and, by, the way, her heart tells her that "this is it," so he finally says, fine, they can do their experiment.

The men, experts in their fields, inserted their hands into the gloves, ready to begin the process.

He's told us like 3 times in the past 2 pages that these guys are experts. We know this already. Is there some reason that it's even more important for us to know this as they put on gloves? Can these gloves only be handled by experts? Are they explosive gloves? Do they put gloves on in a special way? Can you tell if someone is an amateur by the way they put on their gloves? Why is that explanation in this sentence?

All they really do with their gloves is put the vials in the right place, and then they back up and watch the computer arm put the vials together. Malinda Leontiou explains to Doctor Layland Leontiou that the organism is going to "take the form of a retrovirus," and then attach itself to defective genes and destroy them. So we finally have an explanation for what explosive medical nuclear science they're doing.

But then something goes wrong, and you know it's gone wrong because the computer screen freezes, and a siren goes off:

Immediately, a siren sounded throughout the compound, followed by a continuous announcement: "Warning! Warning! Computer shutdown! Warning! Warning! Computer shutdown!"

That seems like a useful alarm. I wish I had one like it.

Since the computers have frozen, the computer arm just goes crazy and dumps ALL the radioactive organism into the vial, and the door isolating the scientists from this deadly virus just swings open because it's been "deprived of its electromagnetic signal." Everybody runs away because "If air touches, the virus, it will explode," and Malinda is dragged away from her laptop:

"My computer," she screamed, reaching for her life's work.

Apparently this Greek billionaire and his team of very very experty experts have never heard of backup files or backup security. Seriously, for doing such an extremely dangerous experiment with all this expertise and all this money, they did it really stupidly. You'd think they'd want to watch for things like, oh, say, the deadly virus isolation chamber door randomly swinging open if the billionaire's wife's personal computer stops controlling it.

The men rushed to aid Whitman, the brave scientist who was using his own body to shield the others from the harmful rays.

Have the harmful rays touched air yet? I was promised explosions. Where are my explosions?

Whitman dramatically yells at everyone to go, and that "It's too late for me," and he desperately tries to hold that door shut - the one that keeps automatically swinging open.

Everybody makes it to the decontamination room right before EXPLOSION. Whitman is instantly killed, the entire lab bursts into flames, and the people in the decontamination room... are thrown to the ground and caught on fire because they didn't shut the door in time. Or, well, two of them are. Malinda is still alive, but her safety hat is exploded off her head. She seals herself inside the decontamination chamber, and she and her husband (who is sitting safely behind the glass wall of his office where he was watching all this) stare at each other.

We end with:

Dr. Layland Leontiou cried out in horror, "Malinda!"

I'm not sure what's going on. Is she stuck in the decontamination room? If so, why? They can't possibly have only one exit. That's the worst decontamination room ever. Is she doomed? Is she going to burn alive? WHAT IS HAPPENING?

Well, we won't find out for awhile, because the next chapter is a flashback.

This is going to be fun, guys. It's meeting all my expectations so far.

(Chapter 2 can be read here.)

It Is Not Your Job To Expand My Comfort Zone

(This has been rolling around in my head for awhile. I'm still not entirely sure it's come out coherently - it's a very emotional subject for me and sometimes that can be hard to put clearly into words, much less edit - but it was really on my heart and mind today, so I wanted to publish it. In a year or so, I may look back on this and think, "What? What was I talking about?" And at that point maybe I can refine it a bit more to convey my thoughts. But for now I'll post it with this disclaimer.)

Introverts, especially more extreme introverts like myself, always have our fair share of people deciding we will be their pet project so they can fix us.

It's the people who say, "I am going to get you to come out of your shell this year."

The ones who say, "Come on, come to this party! You'll have so much fun! It'll be good for you! You need to get out more!"

Worst, it's the ones who push you into situations you never wanted to be a part of, and then when you complain that you're not comfortable, they say, "You need to lighten up!"

Let me say this. Yes, sometimes I do need to come out of my shell. Sometimes I do need to get out more. Sometimes I do need to lighten up.

Here's the thing: That is not your call.

I ranted a little bit about this trend awhile back when I talked about why I stopped watching the sitcom Go On. Sitcoms and movies have formed this completely awful view of friendships in which, if someone thinks they are your friend, they are entitled to drastically reorder your life in order to push you and challenge you into being a better person, especially when it comes to "getting out of your comfort zone" or "letting people into your life."

There are a few practical problems with this.

1. Sometimes the things you think are flaws... aren't. My analytical friends have been told to stop overthinking. My introverted friends have been told to get out more. My optimistic friends have been told to face reality. Are these things flaws in and of themselves? Absolutely not. Sometimes what you may think is a flaw is actually just a piece of their personality. While it may be different from the way you would do things, they and others may truly appreciate that aspect of their personality.

2. If I wasn't uncomfortable before, I sure am now. For many introverts, calling attention to the fact that you think they're not social enough will suddenly take all the fun out of the socializing they do partake in. I'll do it to make you happy (or get you to leave me alone, depending on how close we are) but it's not going to be effective or make me change my mind.

3. It can break the relationship. Deciding you're going to "fix" me and my introversion is essentially telling me the following: "You're a pretty good person, but you'd be a better one if you were more like me." It implies that I don't see my own flaws, am powerless to overcome them, and want desperately to be like you. It's extremely condescending to just self-appoint yourself my guru. It tells me that you think of yourself as the superior and me as the inferior (especially if you don't believe me if I tell you I'm fine or would rather not do this) . If I thought we were on pretty equal footing up until this point, this is a huge blow to the friendship.

So what can you do if you really want to help out an introvert? What if an acquaintance spends most of their time alone and you really genuinely feel they would be happier if they had people to hang out with on a regular basis?

The answer is simple: You make the offer and accept their decision.

If they are looking for a chance to get a little bit more social interaction but don't know quite how to make their way in, this gives them a good one.

If they say no - maybe they're overpeopled or have a lot of work to do or don't like parties or want to finish their book or don't feel comfortable enough with you yet or don't know the other people you'll be with or are just completely socially fulfilled and aren't looking for new friends - then you say OK, no problem, and that is your answer for today.

Imagine a comfort zone as a home. People who like routine, precision, and planning (many introverts) live in small, cozy cottage-sized comfort zones. Outgoing people who love going on adventures, meeting new people, and doing things they've never done before live in enormous mansions.

When you take it upon yourself to expand my comfort zone without my permission, it's like dragging me out of my house and pushing me into yours and then exclaiming, "Isn't this better?"

Well, I don't want to live in your house. I want to live in mine. You can invite me to visit yours any time, and sometimes I'll say yes. Sometimes I may even visit, find a room in your mansion that I like, and decide I want to expand my own home to make room for it, but in the end, my home is mine. My comfort zone is mine. And you're not allowed to kidnap me from it just for fun.

Top 5, Bottom 5: Woody Allen

I haven't done one of these in awhile, so let's devote one to my all-time favorite director! I have seen all but four of Allen's movies, and I debated holding onto this list until I finished those four, but, well, I needed a blog for today. So let's look at my favorite and least favorite Woody Allen movies. They're ranked out of 1945 movies on my Flickchart currently.

Top 5:
1. Annie Hall (1977, #4). This is not only my favorite Woody Allen flick, it's one of the four movies that keeps jumping in and out of my #1 of all time spot. I just feel happy and encouraged and refreshed after watching it. It's a perfect blend of sentimentality and cynicism.
2. The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985, #26). Jeff Daniels in this movie is just a great character. The movie has such an amazing premise, and even though the ending is... something of a twist, I think it's an incredible flick. Solid all the way through.
3. Midnight in Paris (2011, #75). Allen's first really brilliant film in a long, long time. It's smart and fun and charming and has that beautiful combination of fantasy and reality that I love in his movies. Plus, it has one of my favorite movie quotes ever: "That's what the present is. It's a little unsatisfying because life's a little unsatisfying."
4. Scoop (2006, #92). Scoop doesn't have a lot of love from critics, but it's my favorite just-silly Allen. I love the premise, I love Hugh Jackman in it, it has some of my favorite bits of dialogue ("I think the glass is half full, but with poison") and it's just all great fun as long as you don't think about it too much.
5. Bullets Over Broadway (1994, #139). This is the first one on my list I don't own and haven't yet watched multiple times. I should do that. The set up here is just great, and of all the people Allen's ever cast as himself in his movies, John Cusack is my favorite.

Bottom 5:
1. Celebrity (1998, #1731). I just didn't enjoy this one, not even a little bit. While John Cusack is my favorite Woody Allen acting substitute, Kenneth Branagh seems to just be doing an awkward impersonation of him all the way through and it's very awkward. The main theme didn't come through clearly, the jokes weren't funny... it was just long and uninteresting.
2. Whatever Works (2009, #1678). And Larry David's version of Woody Allen seems thoroughly unlikeable. Allen's movies always carry an air of discontent and snobbery, but while it makes me smile when Allen himself plays it, David's interpretation just makes me go, "That is a very angry man."
3. Sleeper (1973, #1590). Easily my least favorite of his early ones. The jokes all seem obvious and fairly dumb. I watched this with a fellow Woody Allen fan and neither one of us got the hype.
4. Stardust Memories (1980, #1502). This one isn't poorly made so much as paying homage to films I'd never seen, so I just didn't get most of it. I'll have to try it again sometime when I have more frame of reference.
5. A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982, #1273). Note the jump in Flickchart ranking. We're out of the ones I don't like and into the ones I was just OK with. There's nothing really bad about this movie, but it never really made me laugh either.

Ask an Introvert: How Can I Be Included?

Hoping to make this an every-so-often recurring feature, where I answer introversion-related questions. Since I blog about introversion a lot, I frequently get texts and emails about introversion, from introverts, extroverts, and those right in the middle (commonly called ambiverts). Although obviously all introverts are different and I'm more on the extreme end on the spectrum, I thought it might be helpful to share my experience and encourage other introverts to chime in.

If you have an introversion-related question you'd like to hear my thoughts on, feel free to comment, email me, Facebook me, tweet me, or ask anonymously with this link.

Today's question, received via Facebook:

Have you ever found that people tend to overlook you for things, later commenting they didn't include you because they didn't think you were interested?

If so, any tips on avoiding such things?

I've been dealing with this for a while now, but it seems to be picking up a lot lately and while I do my best to poke my nose into things now and again and remind people that I exist and might just want to do that too, or would at least appreciate it if they could ASK rather than assume, it seems to be getting more and more frequent as of late.

I have absolutely run into that, and it is frustrating and can be difficult to fix.

For me, my solution has been to plan some things myself for a little bit. I'll take the initiative to invite a friend or a group of friends along to lunch or a movie night. Sometimes if you're not actually there, people forget you used to do stuff with their group. Which sucks. But doing something with them again, either individually or with the whole group, can sometimes make them think, "Oh yeah! Hanging out with this person is fun! And I guess she's not always opposed to being social! We should ask her to do stuff with more often!"

Other than that, there's not much you can do, other than what you've been doing. When you find out they did something without you, you can respond enthusiastically: "Oh, that sounds fun! If you do that again, let me know, I'd love to join you sometime if I can!"

If people do start inviting you regularly again, you might need to join in every so often even if you don't particularly want to. Sometimes I get on a "NO I WILL BE ALONE FOREVER NOW PLEASE" streak and will miss like 10 social engagements in a row, and then people *do* stop inviting me because it seems like all I ever say is no. So if it's just that I'm not really feeling it, rather than like... I'm completely overwhelmed by people and want to curl up and die, I'll go along to a couple of those, just to make sure it's clear that I still want to be friends and part of the group.

Fellow introverts - any other tips?