"Just before sleep, I think about why he can't make a proposition like that to his wife. I'm feeling pretty sorry for myself anyway, I don't care. I'm incapable of being insulted. I haven't loved anybody since that first juicy spurt of youth, and I've more or less decided that even that was merely a successful sales campaign conducted by dealers in jukebox records and mouthwash. Nobody can hurt me. I might get tired, or bored, but I can't be hurt the way a wife could. All this is just dirty talk to me, exotic entertainment for the unloved and unloving."

That's the paragraph of Katherine Dunn's The Resident Poet that speaks volumes to me. Self-worth. How much self-worth do you need? Is it a currency used for exchanges with others? Can it be measured? It seems to only be noticed in extremes.

Too much of it and you're in danger of being considered "bombastic." Idioms of swollen body parts, puffed chests and big heads, often accompany the adjective. Making it seem as if self-worth is blown into the body like the air of a ballon. It pools into certain physical areas, visibly expands them, but overblow and you'll explode.

Too little self-worth is obvious too. You'll end up like our little Sally here. In the prime of her fertility with all the physical benefits that includes, presumably intelligent, and yet agreeing to sleep with a married man who's "paunch" is a more important physical characteristic than anything else he possesses. Every woman that has slept with a man over 40, even a reasonably fit one, knows what Dunn is talking about. Oddly, a physically trait that usually only presents itself for the first time in a darkened bedroom with a harsh backlight creeping in from an adjoining room. Was that always there?

Sally's stronghold of emotional numbness cracks at the very last sentence of the story. It's not as impenetrable as she thinks. It never is when you don't think too highly of yourself.

Self-worth has always felt elusive to me, only rearing its head when you've already gone out of the range, which isn't useful. The supercillious comment has already flown from your mouth or the man who treats you poorly has already been fucked.

So how do we start to measure self-worth better so that the tank isn't running on empty or turgid with fuel? I haven't the slightest idea.

As an elemantary school child back in the 90s, I used to run around telling people my uncle worked on the movie You've Got Mail, until I got older and realized what an absolutely terrible movie it was.

For those of you who haven't had the privilege of seeing this topical but now anachronistic romantic comedy using 90s technology and the soothing sounds of AOL, there's a scene where the protagonist, a middle aged, "dad bod" sporting Tom Hanks, gets stuck in an elevator with his girlfriend, his doorman, and a wealthy woman, presumably of the Upper East Side. After what appears to be hours, as denoted by sweat induced frizzy hair and limbs flopping over, as if sitting itself has become exhausting, the dialogue turns to a game of "if I ever get out of here." A classic movie gambit -- have characters contemplate the future.

Tugging on moviegoers heartstrings begins immediately. The wealthy woman wants to talk to her mother again. The doorman tells a heartwarming tale of getting out of the elevator and proposing to his partner. He loves her and declares it definitively. Obviously, the audience seeing Tom with the one and only Parker Posey, who I will never hate on because her typecast East Coast attitude and dark features will always hit slightly too close to home for me, is waiting for his reaction. Does Tom feel the same about his partner? Is this his true love?

Ever irritated in a way that only New Yorkers understand, Posey's character rummages through her purse and states if she ever gets out of the elevator she's getting her eyes lasered. In an effort to hit the viewer over the head that she's a vapid narcissist, she cuts Hanks off screaming about whatever she can't find in her purse right as he says the line "If I ever get out of here..." (Spoiler Alert: Meg Ryan is also in this movie.)

We are all in our own Elevator Scene during this quarantine and playing "if I ever get out of here" with friends, family and strangers. Thankfully technology as progressed since the filming of You've Got Mail and we are playing this game via many social media and internet platforms.

What I'm most afraid of is that I'm sitting in the elevator rummaging through my purse. Granted, I have rescheduled a botox appointment already, but I'd like to think telling people that plays up the ridiculousness of it. I'm self aware of how insane I sound...sometimes. Posey's character isn't.

Nonetheless, I don't currently have a great ending to the line, "If I ever get out here." I don't have a momentous moment of professing my love or reconnecting with someone I've lost at the end of this quarantine. Maybe that's ok though.

If I ever get out of here, I'm going to hug the people I love, again. If I ever get out of here, I'm going to stop beating myself up for things that happened years ago and accept that people evolve and change, even me. If I ever get out here, I'm going to try and do a better job at articulating my feelings as compared to deflecting with humor. (Note the emphasis on try.)

I've always found it odd that society has these unwritten rules about what's cool, or, perhaps a better word, aspirational.

"Yeah, I absolutely hate going out. I'd rather be home!"

How many times has a friend said that to you? Did you count? Good. The answer, of course, is infinity. People have said that phrase to you many times and, pandemic quaratined or not, they'll continue to say it day after day until the Earth stops spinning.

As a culture, we idealize isolation and idolize those who discuss their introverted tendencies. If you tell someone you stayed in all night and relaxed, you see physical approval on the face of your compatriot. Also, you feel good. You have a puffing in your chest and diaphragm as you say the words. You're impressive. You're even more impressive if that same person went out.

Try it next time. Tell someone in conversation that you stayed in and doesn't their voice drop just a little when they tell you they went out?They feel guilty, and maybe even less healthy than you.

Human beings are social creatures. If you read any kind of theoretical analysis on our species survival it always thematically relates to our complex communication and ability to create social networks, first small bands and then larger civilizations. It's all about how well we get along and the benefits of having a convival nature.

Now that I've exhausted my argument on why we shouldn't idolize loners, I'll say that I am one, or, at least, I've proudly used the example phrase above many times.

I live alone, which rightly suggests I like a wide berth of personal space, but I always assumed I was faking it. Deep down, based on my gregarious nature at work and in most personal settings, I must be an extrovert. Oddly enough, being empirically attractive I've found makes people assume you're extroverted. During those exchanges, I've always happily corrected the speaker, "Oh! No, I'm an introvert."

An easy litmus test to see if you're an extrovert or introvert, is to live in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the world coupled, paradoxically, with some of the smallest living spaces in the world during a crisis that doesn't allow you to leave your home indefinitely.

When my office closed last week during the beginning of New York City's battle with the Coronavirus, I braced myself for my secret being exposed. Nonstop social media posts, FaceTime with friends, social media posts about the FaceTime with friends -- the symptoms of extroversion. Everyone would see it. I faced myself with the acceptance of a soldier who knows he's probably reached the end, as I packed up my belongings at my desk to begin working and living in complete isolation.

None of that happened. I wasn't a liar. I'm certainly confused why I feel more at ease having not seen a human for almost 7 days, but I'm not in the war of the extrovert battling for sanity. I might even, dare I say, feel more mentally grounded than I ever have.

I understand that extrovert/introvert isn't a dichomtoy. Maybe, I'm a hybrid. A cool hybrid.

The frustration of a scientific background emerges in simple, possibly abstract, but often mundane questions. Where do I go when I sleep? Well, there are 4 stages of sleep and REM cycles are when and where we dream.

I can rattle on about the practical, objective neurological information. Sometimes I do, at parties.

I feel safest when I sleep because wherever I am eludes science. There's only so much data that can be generated to denote we don't know much.