If You Belonged Here

I'm movin' on up!

2007-03-19T16:09:00.000-07:00

Come visit me at my new location:www.ifyoubelongedhere.com

Ovaries Are Gonads, Too

2007-03-17T18:05:00.000-07:00

People don't necessarily think of gonads as universally applying to both men and women. But they do. I've often viewed a man clutching his groin after a hit to the boys and thought "well, that's what you get for wearing your ovaries on the outside." You may be wondering about the use of the word often in that last sentence. That's for me to know and, if you're lucky, you'll never find out.

An INTJ friend recently mentioned that she's been told that she has balls. Most INTJ women are ballsy, but we are women first and we wear our balls on the inside. Estrogen, not testosterone, is my hormone of choice. I know what to say when confronted, I seldom find myself at a loss for words when defending myself. The loss comes when it's time to let down my defenses.

I have never met an INTJ who is truly comfortable getting a gratuitous compliment. A confirmation, fine; but a compliment? I squirm. I have difficulty accepting outright praise. Tell me what I already know: I present my ideas with clarity and efficiency, I have a valid point, and I am likely to shake my head in agreement and forget to thank you. Tell me you respect me, and I am satisfied. But mix your praise with emotion or personal preference and I'm going to get uncomfortable.

I like to be appreciated. I like to be acknowledged. I like to be directly responsible for the praise I receive. I do not believe in false modesty. If I am good at something, I will not be shy in telling you so. On the other hand, I readily admit when I lack skills. I don't want anyone holding me responsible for anything I cannot do well. I can accept criticism when it is constructive and respectful. What I cannot accept is praise when it is out of proportion with what I feel I have earned.

As an INTJ female, I strut my gonads every chance I get. I am determined and I am brazen when it comes to doing what I know. What I am not is audacious. I seldom have the audacity to do something badly. I am reluctant to set myself up for failure. I am conservative in my estimates of my own ability, which probably shocks the heck out of anyone who ever called me arrogant. I am not arrogant. I am confidently competent. There is a difference.

Up until now, I have protected my gonads. But I am working up the audacity to grow a big set of brass ones and let them swing. Maybe you'll even be able to hear them clang when I walk.

Polly Poppins

P.S. For the original ballsy woman: Bridget Gray

Who Moved My Cheese Line?

2007-03-14T21:59:00.000-07:00

About the nicest thing I've ever said to anybody, right after "there's nothing gross or disgusting about you," is "I'd love you in the cheese line." I said both of these things to the same person.

Ah, true love. It makes an INTJ wax poetic.

Roll your eyes if you must but I stand by both my compliment and my pledge of devotion.

I admit that at first blush, "there's nothing gross or disgusting about you" isn't much of a compliment. But I think that if you can know someone intimately and not come to the inevitable (or so I thought) moment when familiarity finally breeds contempt, and you can run faster than the person who has you so smitten, you should catch them and get married at them. If you can't run faster than the object of your curmudgeonly affections, you should let them think they are chasing you. Save yourself a side stitch.

As for the cheese line. Many people don't know the joy of government cheese but if you do, then you know that waiting in line to get your bread, eggs, and cheese, is not that much more enjoyable than waiting in a 90 minute line on a 90 degree day to ride Space Mountain. There aren't any voice overs or little movies, though, so you have to entertain yourself by people watching. Let me explain: you know how Oprah has an "after the show," well, it's nothing like that. But if Cops had an after the show when the men had already been hauled off and the women were standing around swearing (to God and like sailors) and swatting children, well, let's just say that I'm not sure the cheese line isn't actually Cops After the Show.

Whatever it is, it cannot be confused with American Idol. For instance, if you don't like the tone of someone's voice, you're best off keeping that information to yourself. No one will save your place in line if you are arrested or hospitalized. And someone else will get your cheese.

I'm serious, people. Government cheese is a hot commodity. Once you've lifted off the cardboard lid and had a slice off the golden five-pound block, you won't go back to deli cheese ever again. But I digress. The point is that government cheese is best when you don't have to do your own waiting, kind of like sausage tastes better when you don't think about how they make it. Moreover, getting in line doesn't automatically get you some cheese. You've got to be certifiably broke. So to promise to love someone even in the cheese line is a mighty serious promise. More serious even than "in sickness or in health, until death do us part." There are nurses to take care of bed pans, and a lot of widows seem pretty merry, but to stand in the cheese line--now there's a promise that really means something. There is a promise of unconditional love.

The truth is that I'm not even sure there still are cheese lines anymore. But if there were, and the situation required it, I would live up to my promise. And I would be proud. Remember, there's absolutely nothing gross or disgusting about my partner in line, and that is not something Hollywood, let alone the cheese line, sees every day. Even my movie boyfriend, Matthew McConaughey, is reported to occasionally be a little lax on personal hygiene. Not that I mind. Or that he cares if I do. He'd been a little cool and distant towards me since, well, since ever. But that's not the point.

The point is that an INTJ in love is still an INTJ.

Love,
Polly Poppins

A Story of Three Cupcakes

2007-03-12T18:13:00.000-07:00

I ate three cupcakes today. They were chocolate with impossibly small chocolate chips. The frosting was vanilla butter cream. I made it myself. With a whole stick of butter. Unsalted. The cake was from a box. But I made that, too, if adding eggs, oil, and water before putting something in the oven count as baking.

I get by with a little help from my friends at the Betty (Crocker).

(and Ford.)

Now I would like to say that I didn't eat anything but those three cupcakes today but that is not true. I also ate a crumb donut for breakfast with a tall nonfat vanilla latte. Snacked on an apple around eleven. Had a slice of pizza, caesar salad, and broccoli for lunch. Then the three cupcakes. And one more slice of pizza for dinner. In my defense I would like to add that, after that first cup of coffee, I drank only water, although some of that water was Perrier. Lemon flavored.

I'm thinking about eating another cupcake.

But I won't.

Why did I eat three cupcakes? Well. I was hungry. They were there. They were easy. They weren't very filling. Probably because they have no fiber or nutritional content whatsoever. Also the sugar buzz is pretty nice. I'm thinking of washing them down with a bottle of wine. One good buzz deserves another.

I am not proud of eating three cupcakes in one day. I am not particularly recalcitrant either. I mean there are serial killers out there, people, and folks who steal all of the sweet-n-low from restaurants. Three cupcakes is not so bad. But the truth is that I feel like a sinner. An unrepentant sinner. But a sinner nonetheless.

I like using the word nonetheless. It ranks up there with whatsoever. I could just say anyway or at all, but they just don't have that writerly flare. I like writerly flare. Like using sinner instead of pig. Nice touch.

And now I feel the sugar coma looming. I feel the cupcakes calling me to sleep, sleep, sweet buttercream sleep. And I'm going to answer that call.

Because if I am going to hell for eating three cupcakes, then I am going to need my rest.

PP

*I stole that picture of the flaming cupcake from the internet. I am not alone.

That Mean Old Yesterday

2007-03-08T06:38:00.000-08:00

Ever heard of Stacey Patton? Me either until yesterday, which actually wasn't so mean, unless you are Stacey and then yesterday is so mean that it becomes the perfect title for a memoir.

Odds are Stacey Patton is one of my people. Who else is more likely, statistically to pull themselves up by the academic roots and become a writer-historian? But she's also a tribe of one. After all, she "survived the foster care system to become a collegiate Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist." And she can "link her experience to the legacy of American slavery" in a way that is painfully eloquent and brutally beautiful. Stacey Patton has something important to say. And lucky for us, she can write. Even better, she can tell a story.

I found a line that I believe confirms Stacey as an INTJ. Something to the effect of “when I grow up I’m going to make more sense than these people.” I think that I always feel empathy for the unidentified INTJ because so much of what makes us feel alienated, and believe me when I say that we almost all do, is the fact that we are really not hardwired like other people and, especially for females, there are so few of us. We spend a lot of time trying to figure out if our circumstances make us different, and sometimes they do, but what really makes us different is that somehow our circumstances can’t make us do what most people would do under those circumstances.

Stacey Patton has found her way to a place, the university, where many INTJs flock. She has found a place where she will be defined by her own competence, her own accomplishments, her own self. Her story is riveting, yes, but it will not ever create pity in another INTJ. INTJs will be too busy respecting her for doing something with her potential, for making meaning of her life, for finding the pattern and provoking a dialogue about how to make the system better.

And because finding the pattern and making meaning for ourselves is what we INTJs do, I have to admit that the part of Stacey's story that resonated with me the most was her fear of failure. The idea that to fail would leave a black hole in her soul and she would be the walking dead. Because when you're an INTJ, your potential is everything, and to risk your potential, to find out it is not fierce and unlimited, is terrifying. The INTJ needs to believe in themselves more than anything else, and risking the hypothesis for the proof is a lot like that scene in Castaway when there's a chance to get off the island. You could be free or it could kill you; it could take your soul. So you have to decide, live on the island, knowing that maybe you could leave tomorrow or the day after, or cast yourself out into the unknown and hope that you aren't wrong.

But the difference is, and I forget this myself, that as INTJs we have the opportunity to navigate, to take sailing lessons, to find a compass and learn to guide ourselves by the stars. We can plan, we can make contingencies, we can do everything humanly possible to safeguard our own success. And, although we don't start off knowing this, those who are like us, the very people who can make a higher education happen, will recognize us instinctively. We are our own people and like any good tribe, we look out for our young.

I know that in my own circumstance there has been tremendous relief in discovering that so much of who I am begins and ends with me. Sure my parents, my family, my friends, my teachers, my rivals, my hometown, the weather, all had influence. Sure I felt that I had to make something of myself because of and in spite of all those things. But it didn't really matter what those circumstances were because I would have been doing that anyway.

More than once, I have heard someone on the margins complain that there are no books for them. There are no stories that tell them about their life. As if. As is everyone but them has found that perfect reflection in The Bluest Eye, The House on Mango Street, Woman Warrior, or The Women's Room. Pul-eese. If you want a book that will make sense of your life, write a memoir. Stacey Patton did.

Slavery is a legacy, a horrible legacy, but a legacy all the same. Why is it still so fresh in the minds of those who were never there? Because so often it is their heritage, their tradition; a tradition that is meted out like a punishment from one generation to the next.

Stacey Patton does something brave. She looks at the past, owns it, and builds a future. She finds the pattern, identifies its beginning, and offers a solution. If there is balance in the universe, and I believe there is, then I hope that her mean old yesterdays are followed by a long string of sweet new tomorrows, not just for her, but for all of the children whose lives will be influenced by her writing.

Tickle Torture for the Soul

2007-02-07T13:11:00.000-08:00

A friend who works in publishing sent me an advance copy of a book titled Hyper-Chondriac.

It made my week.

The author is as far as I can tell, one of my people. INTJ to the core. And absolutely nothing is too far-fetched for him to try in his frantic pursuit of health, well-being, and inner peace. When someone suggests meditation, he meditates. When someone says Tai Chi, he joins a class. When someone says knitting, he rolls his eyes and picks up some needles and yarn. And these are only the remedies I can put into simple sentences. He tries things that even I hadn't uncovered in my own frantic pursuit of inner peace. Complicated, expensive things. Weird, invasive things. Whatever's on the table. Because it might work. You never know.

Sure we INTJs are known for being set in our ways but if our way isn't working or there's a reasonable argument for another way, we'll give it a go. Of course, if the person who makes the suggestion is wrong, then the trust is broken, and we probably won't be taking advice, no matter how likely, from that quarter again. But if the advice works, well, the next time that person suggests anything, from high-powered enemas to raw octopus facials, I might just try it.

The author of Hyper-Chondriac engages in the frantic pursuit of inner peace the way only an INTJ can. He'll try anything, everything, all at once. And he has a deadline. He knows how it looks, he knows people think he's completely off his nut, but does a little humiliation stop him? Absolutely not. He has a higher purpose. And he's even figured out a way to leverage his suffering into a book advance.

I heart him.

Hyper-Chondriac is not a self-help book but it is a book about self help. A wickedly funny book about self help that made l'il ol' ascetic me laugh outloud until my throat ached. Tickle-torture for the soul. And I mean that as high praise.

PP