Amazing song and video by Sigur Rós. It’s for their song “Glósóli.” It’s a little long, clocking in at 6:14, but well worth the time.

These guys sing almost entirely in Icelandic, so it all sounded like gibberish to me. Well, I found out today that they’re actually singing gibberish—they made up a nonsensical language that they call Vonlenska (“Hopelandic”) that sounds like Icelandic, but doesn’t actually mean anything. They still sing a good bit of Icelandic, but they lapse into Vonlenska periodically, sometimes switching back and forth in the middle of songs. Interesting.

I also found out Sigur Rós wrote the entire soundtrack for a documentary about the misfits of Icelandic society. Like, the producer didn’t just use Sigur Rós songs—Sigur Rós wrote an all-original soundtrack for it, and a rather lengthy one at that.

Anyway, I know I just wrote about these guys a few posts back, but I’m still really enjoying them. Thanks to Nicole and Nick at work for sharing them with me. I hope Mogwai and Explosions in the Sky were a good trade, because these guys are amazing.

So I guess I forgot to put something in place last night, because I woke up at about 12:30 to the sounds of cats hissing and running around. Both Zoey and Franny somehow got into the bedroom to see me and Tilly, and Tilly was not happy about it. I don’t remember exactly what happened, because I was still in that half-asleep phase, but I’ve got a few visible scratches on my face and some on my arm, so I suspect that there was a small skirmish involving two cats and the upper half of my body.

I grabbed Zoey and threw him out. Franny took the hint and left on her own accord (good girl). But that little taste of victory was enough to give Zoey hope. Between 1:00 and 2:00 a.m., he started scratching up the carpet seven times. The first two or three times, I just threatened to splash him with a glass of water and he ran away, but after that, I realized that he was going to keep trying.

I started trying to chase him so I could grab him and hold him under a running faucet, but he wised up and started running into Landon’s room. On the seventh time, he ran into the office instead, where I grabbed him and held his head under a running faucet for five seconds or so. That didn’t stop him from coming back at 5:00 a.m. like he normally does. So I’m bloody exhausted.

Bless his heart, the little buddy is just not psychologically capable of connecting his scratching with the water I’m drenching him with. This has been going on for six months and he still doesn’t get it. There’s no need to make the punishments any harsher until he gets that.

I didn’t know this, but there are actually physiological indicators of introversion. Introverts have an increased blood flow to the brain’s frontal lobes, anterior thalamus, and a few other regions. The significance? These are all parts associated with remembering events, making plans, and problem-solving. So an introvert is more likely to have an accurate memory of an event than an extrovert, and, given room to process and concentrate, can potentially solve problems more effectively. (These are all assuming all other things are equal.) Sadly, we don’t have any friends. This is a fair trade-off, I think.

Because my department made almost $3.8 million in January, they decided to rent us a party bus and bus around town for dinner and drinks. I decided to go, despite a few things weighing against it:

1. Bars aren’t really my “scene.”
2. I don’t drink when I’m out.
3. I tense up in large crowds.
4. Drunk people think they’re way more funny than they actually are.

But, I figured, I always skip out on happy hours with co-workers, and I like my co-workers, so I should probably spend some time with them, damnit. Also, I didn’t want to miss out on all the fun stories from the night. So that’s how I spent my Friday night.

Well, there were some fun stories. Mandy ended up throwing a lemon at our boss, for one, and later in the night, the web content manager started working the stripper pole on the bus. (Yes, there was a stripper pole on a refurbished schoolbus. It was a little surreal.) Also, one of us got denied access to a club because of an expired driver’s license (uh, an expired license does not change your birthdate) and we had to sneak in another way without getting caught. All in a day’s work.

The whole evening, though, made me realize how odd I truly am. I thrive on deep and meaningful human connection, which isn’t encouraged by loud music and dark, smoky rooms. I don’t like drawing attention to myself. I was mostly silent unless I was involved in a one-on-one conversation. I think some people thought I was actually blowing them off. It was like a flashback to high school.

(So, yeah, to anyone that came with us on Friday night, sorry if I seemed to tune you out. It was hard for me to pay attention.)

I think part of this is the INFP in me coming out and part of it is the depression and social anxiety I’ve had my entire life (which is much more manageable now than it was, say, seven years ago, but is still present in trace amounts). It’s an odd place to be. I feel like it’s pretty easy for me to understand other people, but pretty difficult for people to really understand me. Soren Kierkegaard said it best when he said, “People understand me so poorly that they don’t even understand my complaint about them not understanding me.”

All that said, I did actually have a good time. I had some great conversations with a few co-workers about faith, politics, charity work, and music, and it was actually fun to see the hijinks that my co-workers put themselves up to. Also, volunteering to be a designated driver made me feel a little better about everyone going out (although I ended up not having to drive anyone home). So, yeah, I’d do it again—although I think I’d still prefer going to a wine bar or coffeehouse, or playing board games at someone’s house.