Come up and see me, make me smile

As I was walking to work this morning, a flat-bed lorry drove past me with a mobile traffic light standing upright on its bed. I could almost hear the traffic light go "Whee!" as it drove past. The lorry had to stop at a red light, and I was sure that the mobile traffic light was having an excited conversation with its rather more staid stationary cousin.

The sight of a Reliant Robin, the three-wheeled car that Jeremy Clarkson so famously fell over with, parked on a disabled space makes me smile.

For that matter, the phrase "disabled space" makes me smile, wondering what an enabled space looks like.

Another thing that had me smiling all day was a link a friend of mine posted on FB: 10 Myths About Introverts. The more I read the article, the more I saw myself. I'm not good with small talk (but I have become better, largely by living in a place where people actually practice small talk). I don't consider it rude to come straight to the point when there is one, and I don't mean in social talk, where the point is connecting with people (where I can talk and talk for ages, as some people know). I'm the polar opposite of the singer of my ex-band, he who would think nothing of telling strangers his life stories, up to and including his girlfriend troubles. I have been called shy before (and aloof, and once (in German) a "stuck-up bitch"). And when I read that "if there is too much talking and noise going on, they (=introverts) shut down", I thought, Oh, so that's it. This is me. I always thought I was the only one this happened to - picture a party, or being in a group in a crowded pub, with music playing in the background and lots of people talking, and you want to listen to them all really and interact, and suddenly it becomes too much, much too much input, and the only way to deal with this is to close your eyes and put your hands over your ears, or step outside for a few minutes, and just come down a bit, until you're OK again and ready to face the crowds. It is not being rude (and if you perceive it as such, I am sorry), it is a coping mechanism. I am shutting down for a moment, not because I want to block you out, but because I want to be able to let you in.

I think I am going to order that book they're talking about.