I am plugged in.

I am a firm believer in the "Open Door Policy", but you would never guess it by looking at the door to my room...because it's always closed. I blame my sneaky brothers and my mom's insistence when I was younger to "always leave the door open!" In my mom's defense, there were heating/cooling reasons for my door to be left open when I was growing up in a small town in Pennsylvania. But I lived in the attic, and unless I was standing at the top of the stairs, I couldn't see the stairway. Which left a lot of opportunities for my sneaky younger brothers to find their way into my room and proceed to scare the bejeezus out of me. Or just spy on me and whatever friend I managed to convince to come over. Which wasn't very often.

So when I moved out of that house, there was no longer a reason for me to leave my door open. So I closed it. And I've been closing my door ever since. I feel better when my door's closed. Nobody can sneak up on me. If you haven't guessed, I'm a pretty skittish person. It's extremely easy to scare me. I scream, jump, and hit things reflexively. I suppose that's why my brothers found it so entertaining when they figured out how to do it from a distance. I tend to lash out at assailants. I call it self-defense, but it's actually just a really weird reflex. I have zero self-defense skills, except for really good aim.

So my door's closed. But if you knock, I'll always say "Come in!" as long as I'm decent, and awake.

In reality, I'm a pretty guarded person bordering on paranoid. But on the internet, I'm an open book. I'll talk to just about anybody that knows how to spell. You don't even have to necessarily use proper grammar. Just show some semblance of intelligence, and I'll like, favorite, follow, subscribe to, or +1 you or your comments. I enjoy interacting with people online. I like to get to know people in all their complexities. I am more comfortable opening up to people on all my social networks than I am in real life. Even if I meet someone new in person, I tend to bring my social networks into the conversation and encourage them to look me up there. Because I don't know how to make myself relate to people that don't spend their lives plugged into social networks.

Okay, so there's three exceptions to my rule. Meaning that there are two people and one group of people that very rarely hear the phrase "Uh...check out my Facebook (or Twitter, or Google+, or Pinterest, or Tumblr, or Wordpress, or Nerdfighter profile)" in response to any question that requires a multi-word answer about myself. Select members of my family (including those sneaky brothers), my best friend, and my boyfriend are the only people that I actually like to spend time with in the version of my reality that doesn't include my computer. Although it does usually at least include my smart phone (for checking in on Foursquare, of course!)

I'm also not the greatest at thinking on my feet. Most of my conversations are carefully planned out in my head. Somebody asks me a question I'm not prepared for, and I blank. I'm a horrible speaker. I use "uh" and "like" a lot. But get me online, and I sound reasonably intelligent. I love to learn about random things, and when I get really excited about something I've learned, I'll actually talk about it online. Sure, most people raise their eyebrows at some of the stuff I like, but I don't care.

Mathematics, science, and made-up worlds aren't current events. I couldn't care less about what's going on in Hollywood. I try to pay attention to what goes on in Washington, D.C., but I'm not a registered voter, so I tend to shy away from politics. I don't feel like I can actually make an educated decision on what's best for America based on the information I happen to run across in my YouTube subscriptions. I'm just not passionate about things that I can't play a meaningful part in. I'm sorry, but going to a booth, and flipping a switch or whatever on the same day as millions of other Americans is not my definition of meaningful. But you won't hear me complain about what America decides. I always assume that there's more to every story than what the media tells us. Which is why I don't watch the news, or read the paper. Why bother when you're only getting part of the story?

I am plugged in.

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