Noam & Rory

I finally checked out who Noam Chomsky is. Why did I need to know? Do you remember the poster on wall of  ‘Gilmore Girl’ Rory’s room (college or home I can’t remember)? It said Noam Chomsky. You see it occasionally through the years and it is a memorable name.  I’d heard the name before and knew it was someone important in some ‘world view’ kind of way. He’s a linguist and an anarchist. So I see the relevance of a person who wants to go into journalism having a poster of a linguist on her wall. The fact that he’s an anarchist must mean something to someone involved with the Gilmore Girls, but since the girls never venture far from Stars Hollow geographically or via the plotline, I think it was not a vision into one of the character’s personalities.

I watched a repeat of the episode where Lorelei agrees to marry Max while at dinner at her parents’ house. You see her calling Max in a panic about where they will live and all the other things they hadn’t yet discussed. She quotes something Luke said verbatim. Because she’s talking about the future, you and Max both see where this conversation is going, but you don’t see her verbally agreeing to marry him. You see her walking back into the dining room but hanging back at the threshold long enough to catch Rory’s eye and nod. Both she and Rory know what this means and are excited jumping around while her parents wonder what is going on.

I sometimes just watch things at face value and don’t always see the domino effect others’ actions have on people. But I think there was a reason why Lorelei agreed that night to marry Max. When she and Rory arrived at dinner, her parents were excited to tell them that they knew that Rory was in the top 3% of her class. A special dinner was to be planned and gifts given so she got some nice attention.

I think Lorelei agreeing to marry Max was a reaction to her daughter’s attention. Not in a vengeful way, she didn’t tell her parents that night and steal the spotlight. But Rory had the positive attention of her grandparents, a bright future ahead of her, and she was growing up. Lorelei needed to feel good about something too. It was also a reaction to Luke’s response to the news.  When she told her good friend Luke about the news, he was less than enthused and supportive. I think she wanted him to tell her what she couldn’t tell herself or needed his approval. She defended the relationship while he raised questions about it.

Of course we know that Lorelei and Max do not end up ‘happily ever after.’ And it is for the better.

True Love – Celebrity Style

So Kendra Wilkerson has jumped from a ‘relationship’ with Hugh Hefner to being engaged to Hank Baskett. Was she ever really in love with Hef? Is she in love with Hank? I personally think Kendra has more of a respect for Hef because he brought some order to her life and gave her experiences she’d never have otherwise. I don’t think they had a romatic relationship.

Remember when Benjamin Bratt was with Julia Roberts and all seemed right in the world? Then they broke up, he got into a relationship with Talisa Soto and then married her? Was the relationship with Talisa a relief after the high profile relationship he had with Julia?

Another example, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez. They had a very public relationship then quickly found others after it ended. Is it the media attention that gets in the way? Is plain Jen Garner the true love of Ben’s life? Didn’t she know who he was and who he dated before they met? How did she come to decide that she loved him?

We were supposed to believe Jessica loved Nick. But then she suddenly ‘grew up’ and knew he wasn’t the one for her. See my other posts for more about what I think of her.

Do stars really know what true love is? Or are they just having relationship after relationship because they tire or get bored of who they’re with? Do actors become actors and need to play roles and do PR stuff because they aren’t comfortable with themselves or need constant change? As much as I’d like to earn what they earn and get the perks they do, I think you need to be a certain kind of person to want to live that life.

Don’t Buy a Bender Ball

It may not be appropriate to do here, but I need to vent about a particular product….

Can’t imagine why, but I saw the ad for the Bender Ball and thought I should buy it. It’s basically a small exercise ball that can help you work on your abs.It came with a DVD and I’ve used it once since I got it in October. I happened to glance at my bank statement online recently and found that the company had charged me twice for two different amounts, six weeks apart. Because my husband was good enought to by it for me, I thought he should call to find out the problem since the account would be in his name.

Via phone, the customer service rep insisted that  he had purchased a video delivery service. For $26.95 per month, I would get a new DVD each month. Of course, he had not purchased this but she was reluctant to ‘hear’ that until he told her what was going on was fraud and he would be calling the better business bureau. She then agreed to refund the money but said we must return the DVD that was on it’s way (that was 12/3, still don’t have that video!) at our own expense. He noted again that was fraud. I don’t recall whether there was any resolution about the DVD, but she said we would have a refund. He asked for an email to confirm this but we never received it.

I searched online and found a site listing lots of unsatisfied customer stories. I decided to file a compaint with the Better Business Bureau in California, where the PO Box for orders is located, since I was not sure the company would follow through with the refund. I also emailed the company and said I wanted a refund by 12/13 or further action would be taken. I did receive a response noting that I had already contacted the company but no other details.

The BBB sent our compaint to the company for a response and let us know of this via email. The next day, someone from the Bender Ball company called (not the unhelpful CSR) and told us we can expect to receive a refund in 3-5 days and we did not have to return the DVD.

The cool thing about the BBB is that you can tell them what you want the company to do to satisfy the complaint. We wanted our refund of course, but we also felt like we needed specifically say we did not want to be charged for anything further and wanted confirmation to that effect, and did not want our information in their databases. According to their privacy policy, they will sell our information, so they’ll still make money off us. This issue was not covered in the phone call and might need follow up.

So, if we get the refund and all is done, we will be happy. But I may follow up about our personal information just to be sure…

Insight to an Introvert

Wow. Scrolling wandering around WordPress brought me to an article on http://theerrantaesthete.com/2007/11/06/introverts-revisisted/ (originally in the  Atlantic) about being an introvert. It was like when Lucy asked Charlie Brown if he had the fear of everything and he exclaimed “That’s it!” Of course, being an introvert isn’t my only problem. But just knowing that aspect of my personality can help me see why I react to things the way I do and give myself permission to do so.

To illustrate the difference between an introvert and an extrovert, Jonathan Rauch says his partner’s “default mode of being is to talk and interact all the time, whereas mine is to talk as little as possible.” That is the start of my work day as soon as I walk in the door. I don’t want to talk but not because I have a lot of work to do, hate who I work with, am antisocial. My co-workers want to talk but not because they got up earlier than I did, don’t have a lot of work to do, or really like me. I’m an introvert, they are not. Rauch: “By definition, he explained, introverts are those who find other people’s company tiring.”

He talks about his own experience of the work it takes to be with people and to make small talk. “I have to think about what to say next, and sometimes I can’t think fast enough and end up saying something stupid. Or sometimes I just come up dry and the conversation kind of ends for while until I can think of another topic.”  Picture the short walk to the garage/parking lot when leaving work. The pressure to talk about something that won’t require a lot of time because soon you’ll be at your cars. I work in the same physical space as them, it should be easy to come up with something to say or ask about.

Strangely, it’s not. Am I not paying enough attention to what’s going on in their lives? Do I not know what matters to them? Should I ask what they are doing after work? Is that too inane? See all that thought that precedes what eventually comes out, provided the extrovert hasn’t beaten me to the conversational start? Again describing his partner, Rauch says, he ” can always somehow turn the conversation right over effortlessly and keep it going even when what he says is not necessarily profound or interesting… it’s not words that are particularly intended to convey ideas or mean things. It’s words that socialize—that simply continue the conversation. It’s chit-chat.”

So a conversation can be, like Seinfeld, about nothing! Days before reading this article, I went to a family (in-laws, not my own) party. Thinking about it after (I always do this!), I was different then than I had been at other parties. I had longer conversations with some relatives than ever before. I talked with people I really didn’t know. I said whatever I felt like saying and it resulted in a nice back-and-forth. This is before I knew about the introvert/extrovert thing!

What I consciously did at that party is what extroverts take for granted. It’s not that I need to be more outgoing, more accepting, have lower standards, learn how to do small talk, gain a better understanding of people,  stop being so serious, and on and on. Knowing that I am an introvert gives me permission to not label myself as wrong or a misfit.I also need to do more of what I did at that party, as long as I want to be around people that particular night!

But in my introversion, I have one edge – “Extroverts really have a hard time “getting” it (understanding introverts). And even when they do get it, they still have a hard time modifying their behavior.” (Rauch again) Now I can feel comfortable making that conscious effort, knowing it’s not a failure to have to do it.

As much as his article notes that extroverts need to be aware of introverts and how they work, it’s equally important that introverts know who they are and how they can survive in this noisy busy world. I’m happier knowing this part of me!