Are you an inny or an outy?

I am an outy. (I mean personality-wise, I don’t care about your belly button…mine is an inny btw but I haven’t been able to see it properly for years unless I attempt a deeply unpleasant unfolding of layers of stomach)…

See? This makes me an outy. I cannot STOP talking and sharing and communicating all over the place.

I NEED to be with people. Mainly to make them listen to my jokes. But also because I need to know what other people are doing and why and how they feel about that and what their plans are because then I can think about what I think and feel and slot myself into the world properly.

Gwyneth and my youngest are innies (am massively screwed up here about the plural of ‘inny’). At work and school they are normal and can speak, but outside of those daytime structures they both fall apart a bit and would rather look at a screen or mess about cooking or gardening.

Gwyneth can be coaxed into extra-curricular socialising, but only if it involves a maximum of two other people and vats of wine. At six years old, youngest is not yet allowed to soften the hell of socialising by being blind-drunk (though M&M’s and fruit-shoots help). By the end of the school day, all he can really deal with is picking his nose and fiddling with his nob while he plays minecraft. After-school clubs are out of the question. Parties are tearfully endured.

Many successful people are innies (I’ve settled on this as plural). If it wasn’t for Zuckerberg there would be no facebook and my life would have no meaning. If it wasn’t for Speilberg there would be no ET and my life would have no meaning. If it wasn’t for Whoopi Goldberg there would be no Sister Act and my life would have no meaning…

Me loves all these introverted berg-people!

Today, youngest’s class are taking a trip to the seaside. That’s why he’s at home on the sofa with me. The thought of a whole day talking and playing with his friends made him weep every time we mentioned it.

My natural outyness has often clashed with Gwyneth’s innyness (this is pushing the limits of creative wordsmithery now). Especially as I become more outy with age and he becomes more inny. I tend to do much of my outy stuff without him now because worrying about him being all innyish while I’m being all outyish puts a total downer on my outyness…

But having youngest is teaching me how to accept and understand these inny-types. They will never tell you things like how their naked torso resembles the face of an angry old man: (two sad, lolling eyes; a lopsided, disgruntled mouth; saggy, wrinkly jowels), because there’s no need for it and I have in no way improved your day by making you think about it, but I had to do it because the thought occured to me before when I was thinking about my belly button so I thought I’d share it with you because maybe your boobs/belly look like something weird too or maybe they don’t but either way it’s worth saying isn’t it?

Plato said: “Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something”.

But I can totally ignore that because I’m not a man…

Tomorrow youngest must attend a party which he will almost certainly spend sitting on my knee so that I can’t smoke and chat to the other parents. Aside from that, we will be having a totally inny weekend.

I’ll see you Monday for some more outy stuff…