I want to write an action movie about some older retired government agent who’s married and settled down. He’s started to let his guard down. And that’s when the past comes back to haunt him.
They come for him while he’s home alone and he’s resisting their interrogation techniques, refusing to betray whatever or whoever they’re after. Except then his teenage daughter comes home early.
And the baddies send one of their henchmen out there to deal with her. And RetiredActionDad is all “Don’t you touch her! I’ll kill you! Rar!” But the baddies just laugh.
Except they realize, after a little while has passed, that the one guy never came back from dealing with the daughter.
And then go outside and find the missing baddie floating face down in the pool.
The rest of the movie is the teenage girl calling in favors and running around following the baddies to save her RetiredActionDad.
So Taken, but in reverse.
It should be called The Liability.
I would watch the hell out of this.
And then in the sequel, the daughter has joined the FBI, following in her dad’s footsteps. But the brother of the villain from the first one wants revenge. So he kidnaps her mother. She and her dad head abroad to find mom in the villain’s secret lair…while mom has already escaped has been busy hiding in the air vents and stabbing goons with knitting needles. Turns out she was a Russian spy who defected and married her government handler forty years ago, and can handle herself.
1. When we see you after a long day, we might be all irritable and not want to talk
It has nothing to do with you. Outgoing introverts, though still introverts at their core, often need to recharge after a large use of social energy. After a long day of dealing with people, our social batteries are drained and we need to unwind and recover, usually alone.
2. We’re charming creatures and can be the life of the party, but…
You’ll be surprised how much we actually live in our heads. People often confuse us for extroverts, but we’re too introspective and over-think too much to be one.
3. If we like you, we really like you.
We don’t waste our time with people we’re not completely crazy about. If we agreed to go on a date with you, we like you. Take it as a huge compliment.
4. We have times when we’re weird with our phones.
Some days we can talk for hours, but sometimes we’re not so good at replying and talking on the phone. Don’t take it personally – we screen our phone calls, even from our closest friends. Outgoing introverts sometimes hate the phone because it’s all, like, intrusive and tears our minds away from whatever we’re deeply focusing on (and we are always deeply focusing on something). Our mind doesn’t change direction easily. Listening to one thing and seeing something else is a lot of sensory input piled on top of everything that’s already going on in our heads.
5. But don’t worry, in person we’ll listen to you for hours.
We have spectrums of introversion, so we’re good listeners. We’ll always be naturally in tune with how you’re feeling, so we’ll be able to see through any front you put up and make you jump into the deep end.
6. We need to dip our foot in the pool first.
We need time to warm up, so, like, chill. We tend not to outwardly express our feelings and spill our whole life story in the first hour of meeting you. Or the first year.
7. Our energy level depends on our environment.
Yes, we can get annoyed easily. If we vibe with the crowd, we can get our energy from human interactions. But if we don’t, we’ll start to get really introspective and reflective, and tend to withdraw into ourselves. It’s kinda like a hit or miss. We’re very selectively social. But it’s not because we dislike people – it’s actually the opposite. We dislike the barriers like small talk (which often comes with going out) creates between people, and try to avoid it at all costs.
8. You’ll think we are flirty with everyone.
Okay here’s the thing, when we inevitably have to interact with people, we make it seem like there’s nothing in the world we’d rather be doing. It’s ‘cause we’re, like, overly sensitive and so we go out of our way to make other people feel comfortable and happy. We’re intuitive and outgoing at the same time.
Research has found that introverts pay more attention to detail and exhibit increased brain activity when processing visual information. A study shows that the brain of an introvert weighs internal cues more strongly than external motivational and reward cues.
I was inspired by severalarticles about the Tampon Tax recently and some of the protests against the categorization of tampons as “luxury items,” so I made this up. It’s funny because it’s true.
Tampons are a “luxury item”
Once I worked as an intern in the state capital. One of the representatives I worked for was this middle-aged guy. And he hated the tampon and napkin machines in the women’s bathrooms. Hated them. He insisted that they weren’t necessary.
I found out why after I’d been working there, oh, about a month. My period started suddenly, as it sometimes does, and I asked to excuse myself to go to the ladies’ room. He wanted to know why. I told him.
He started ranting about how lazy women were. How we wasted time. How we were so careless and unhygenic, and that there was no call for that. He finished by telling me that I certainly was NOT going to the ladies’ room and that I was just going to sit there and work. He finished this off with a decisive nod, as if I’d just been told and there could be no possible argument.
“If I don’t go,” I said in an overly patient tone, “the blood is going to soak through my pants, stain my new skirt that I just bought, and possibly get on this chair I’m sitting in. I need something to soak up the blood. That’s why I need to go to the bathroom.”
His face turned oatmeal-gray; an expression of pure horror spread across his face. He leaned forward and whispered, “Wait, you mean that if you don’t go, you’ll just keep on bleeding? I thought that women could turn it off any time that they wanted!”
I thought, You have got to be kidding.
Several horrified whispers later, I learned that he wasn’t. He actually thought a) that women could shut down the menstrual cycle at will, b) that we essentially picked a week per month to spend more time in the bathroom, i.e. to goof off, and c) that napkins and tampons were sex toys paid for by Health and Human Services. I didn’t know the term then, but he believed that tampons were dildos. Which was why he and a good number of his friends considered them luxuries.
And that’s how, at twenty, I had to give a talk on menstruation to a middle-aged married state representative who was one of my bosses. American politics, ladies and gentlemen.
theluminouscosmos 