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interview meme
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.
That LLY asked a lot of folks questions---see here for her entry, and follow links to everybody's answers. I'm gonna. I wanna know about, say, one of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fearfuloptimist's hottest sexual encounters.
1. Please tell me about your rock collection.
I love rocks. It probably goes back to family vacations in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Once, though, our car broke down outside Drummond, Montana, where we had to camp in the city's park for three days awaiting a new water pump. I spent much of that time in Roy's Rock Shop. Roy must have had some patience for kids.
I have lots of kinds of rocks. Not all of them make every move with me, but more do than many folks would probably consider reasonable. I have a few hunks of petrified wood & marble that might have a certain economic value, but I can get excited about something like a hunk of I-don't-know-what that looks uncannily like a russet potato. And speaking of I-don't-know-what, despite my "science" project once being a display of rocks with labels of what they are, I don't know what's what that way. Fossils interest me, too, and I'm not averse to a polished stone, or to something sculpted, like a little skull I have with a swirl of color looking like it's running through its brain.
I still ask people to bring me a rock when they go some place. Not everybody looks at me like I'm crazy.
2. When did you first consciously call yourself a feminist?
Immediately after the first time I heard the term, I reckon! I still have a real fondness bordering on reverence for our lesbo-femmo foremothers, despite the foibles (and genuine damage) we now attribute to some aspects of the "first wave." In my early 20's I relied more than I realized at the time on the local women's bookstore to grow into a comfortable way of being female. I sometimes say I didn't discover women until I was 18, and it's true---and not just cuz that was when I discovered sleeping with them, and being close friends with 'em: until then I hadn't gotten to square one on how I could reconcile belonging to the gender and its apparent place in the world.
I can hardly believe what connotations "feminist" has come to have in the dominant culture. It boggles my mind how women I know can say they're not feminists, but they believe [insert list of core feminist principles here]. Not that I don't know why they might want to distance themselves from some scary evil-dripping monster word, but c'mon.
3. Have you trained on any musical instruments?
Snare drum. That's it, apart from "Teaching Little Fingers To Play" and part of the 1st level John Thompson piano book in, like, 1970---but my piano teacher was my mother, who taught kids in the neighborhood & was all too willing to let her own kids quit at the drop of a hat. I regret now that there seemed to be something uncool about taking lessons from yer mom. Later I was part of the cutting edge kazoo-based Truncated Octopus, with other band geeks. We were largely inspired by the success of the Flying Lizards, who appeared to have even less talent than we.
I did take music theory in high school---one of the few real academic challenges my school offered. The rules of four-part harmony à la J. S. Bach were my favorite thing. Very mathy. It was my main education in notes that "go up and down," as I liked to say, after learning to read drum line rhythms very well, but not anything involving intervals. It's laughably typical (of my character) to me the way, after this background, I now come at making up songs: a strange base of the verbal (it all starts with words) & the analytical ("hunh---that's the IV chord"), yet coming out in my atonal emotional spew, and doing for me something that the analytical & the verbal on their own do not.
4. With no $, geographic, or metaphysical constraints, please describe an ideal dinner.
The romantic in me comes out here, as the first thought that occurs to me is the company. I'm imagining the backyard court of some urban bistro on uneven old bricks inside tall, weather-worn wood fencing, with little white lights haphazardly in a few of the little sparsely-leafed trees coming up through iron grate coverings here and there. It's dark, and a little cool. The tables and chairs are black metal, but not heavy-wrought---and no arms on those chairs, of course. There's been, or is about to be, a salad with pears in it and we're nibbling on some esoteric appetizer I've never seen before & couldn't think up in a million, cuz my lover is an adventurous diner too, of course; who knows what entrées we're vaguely expecting but would have to think to recall ordering, as we're enjoying our conversation & the atmosphere so very.
There might be wine & there might not. It doesn't matter. I hope there'll be coffee, and I prefer to think we'll have room for dessert. This eatery is probably more modest in portion size than yer usual American box restaurant, after all.
Is it in New York? It feels as if it is. It might be in L.A., though, believe it or not. I ate in one great out-back spot in L.A. once. NB: had my ass been to Europe by now, my answer would quite possibly be taking place in France or Italy, or somewhere else entirely. Main point: it's the company and the atmosphere for me every doggoned bit as much as the food. Hell, MORE than the food. It could be set in my own home, too, or someone else's, but that's not what first pops to mind.
5. When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
In elementary school I once told a teacher "nuclear physicist," all deadpan, just to see her reaction (just more puzzled discomfort with a tinge of fear---what I usually inspired in adults). I meant it a bit more when I told another teacher I wanted to be a writer. (NOT an "author"---ugh.) Truth is, I just wanted to be somebody who wasn't so bloody confused about how things work. As it turns out, the daily life of a writer runs counter, in a way, to my preference for being around and interacting with people regularly, daily. I still love words and the ways they work together, though. And I still think "nuclear physicist" sounds cool.
2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.
That LLY asked a lot of folks questions---see here for her entry, and follow links to everybody's answers. I'm gonna. I wanna know about, say, one of
fearfuloptimist's hottest sexual encounters.1. Please tell me about your rock collection.
I love rocks. It probably goes back to family vacations in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Once, though, our car broke down outside Drummond, Montana, where we had to camp in the city's park for three days awaiting a new water pump. I spent much of that time in Roy's Rock Shop. Roy must have had some patience for kids.
I have lots of kinds of rocks. Not all of them make every move with me, but more do than many folks would probably consider reasonable. I have a few hunks of petrified wood & marble that might have a certain economic value, but I can get excited about something like a hunk of I-don't-know-what that looks uncannily like a russet potato. And speaking of I-don't-know-what, despite my "science" project once being a display of rocks with labels of what they are, I don't know what's what that way. Fossils interest me, too, and I'm not averse to a polished stone, or to something sculpted, like a little skull I have with a swirl of color looking like it's running through its brain.
I still ask people to bring me a rock when they go some place. Not everybody looks at me like I'm crazy.
2. When did you first consciously call yourself a feminist?
Immediately after the first time I heard the term, I reckon! I still have a real fondness bordering on reverence for our lesbo-femmo foremothers, despite the foibles (and genuine damage) we now attribute to some aspects of the "first wave." In my early 20's I relied more than I realized at the time on the local women's bookstore to grow into a comfortable way of being female. I sometimes say I didn't discover women until I was 18, and it's true---and not just cuz that was when I discovered sleeping with them, and being close friends with 'em: until then I hadn't gotten to square one on how I could reconcile belonging to the gender and its apparent place in the world.
I can hardly believe what connotations "feminist" has come to have in the dominant culture. It boggles my mind how women I know can say they're not feminists, but they believe [insert list of core feminist principles here]. Not that I don't know why they might want to distance themselves from some scary evil-dripping monster word, but c'mon.
3. Have you trained on any musical instruments?
Snare drum. That's it, apart from "Teaching Little Fingers To Play" and part of the 1st level John Thompson piano book in, like, 1970---but my piano teacher was my mother, who taught kids in the neighborhood & was all too willing to let her own kids quit at the drop of a hat. I regret now that there seemed to be something uncool about taking lessons from yer mom. Later I was part of the cutting edge kazoo-based Truncated Octopus, with other band geeks. We were largely inspired by the success of the Flying Lizards, who appeared to have even less talent than we.
I did take music theory in high school---one of the few real academic challenges my school offered. The rules of four-part harmony à la J. S. Bach were my favorite thing. Very mathy. It was my main education in notes that "go up and down," as I liked to say, after learning to read drum line rhythms very well, but not anything involving intervals. It's laughably typical (of my character) to me the way, after this background, I now come at making up songs: a strange base of the verbal (it all starts with words) & the analytical ("hunh---that's the IV chord"), yet coming out in my atonal emotional spew, and doing for me something that the analytical & the verbal on their own do not.
4. With no $, geographic, or metaphysical constraints, please describe an ideal dinner.
The romantic in me comes out here, as the first thought that occurs to me is the company. I'm imagining the backyard court of some urban bistro on uneven old bricks inside tall, weather-worn wood fencing, with little white lights haphazardly in a few of the little sparsely-leafed trees coming up through iron grate coverings here and there. It's dark, and a little cool. The tables and chairs are black metal, but not heavy-wrought---and no arms on those chairs, of course. There's been, or is about to be, a salad with pears in it and we're nibbling on some esoteric appetizer I've never seen before & couldn't think up in a million, cuz my lover is an adventurous diner too, of course; who knows what entrées we're vaguely expecting but would have to think to recall ordering, as we're enjoying our conversation & the atmosphere so very.
There might be wine & there might not. It doesn't matter. I hope there'll be coffee, and I prefer to think we'll have room for dessert. This eatery is probably more modest in portion size than yer usual American box restaurant, after all.
Is it in New York? It feels as if it is. It might be in L.A., though, believe it or not. I ate in one great out-back spot in L.A. once. NB: had my ass been to Europe by now, my answer would quite possibly be taking place in France or Italy, or somewhere else entirely. Main point: it's the company and the atmosphere for me every doggoned bit as much as the food. Hell, MORE than the food. It could be set in my own home, too, or someone else's, but that's not what first pops to mind.
5. When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
In elementary school I once told a teacher "nuclear physicist," all deadpan, just to see her reaction (just more puzzled discomfort with a tinge of fear---what I usually inspired in adults). I meant it a bit more when I told another teacher I wanted to be a writer. (NOT an "author"---ugh.) Truth is, I just wanted to be somebody who wasn't so bloody confused about how things work. As it turns out, the daily life of a writer runs counter, in a way, to my preference for being around and interacting with people regularly, daily. I still love words and the ways they work together, though. And I still think "nuclear physicist" sounds cool.
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2. What hot thing are you wearing today?
3. Describe one of your favorite kisses and/or kissing experiences.
4. Which people from your current life (not counting family) do you expect to be in the closest touch with in a year, and why them? Are there any you would like to keep in your life but doubt you will?
5. If you had to lose, all of a sudden, one of the following, which would you give up, and why?
(a) your wicked sense of humor
(b) your wicked complexity
(c) your wicked passion for people
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2. If you can snap your fingers and be employed in an job, what would it be?
3. Are you ever jealous of people of religious faith, in any way? If so, in what way(s)?
4. Tell me your earliest memory. I've probably heard about it before, but I forget.
5. If R weren't in your life, what do you think the chances are that you'd be partnering with a woman rather than a man?
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2. How old were you when you did something about it (if you catch my drift)?
3. How do you feel about abbreviations like IYCMD for "if you catch my drift"?
4. If you could snap your fingers and suddenly be employed at any job, what would it be? (I just asked that of
5. Which of the following activities is most appealing to you, and why?
(a) flying a kite
(b) going to the movies
(c) going roller skating
(d) staying overnight in a motel
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2. Did you have a really cool science teacher (or two or three) at some point?
3. What was the most serious romantic involvement you had before your now ex-wife?
4. If you could have one of the following, which would you pick, and why?
(a) $10,000
(b) a trip to various places in Europe that would cost $20,000 if you were paying for it
(c) a convertible pick-up truck that's worth around $40,000, but you can't sell it for the money; you have to drive it until it dies or you give it away
(d) a $200,000 house that's paid for, but you have to live there with your ex-wife
5. Tell me your favorite thing about mathematics. If that's not too vague.
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2. How do you know
3. Tell me the most embarrassing incident (preferably comic, vs. tragic) you can stand to reply here with.
4. Ever actually do the toad licking?
5. Do you see your sharp, smart sense of humor as something you honed in the face of pain/conflict/oppression or other bad stuff, or is it just one of the delightful characteristics you're blessed with? Comment.
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1. How do you know
2. Have you always lived in Kansas? If not, where else have you lived? If so, where else in Kansas have you lived?
3. Were you spiritual as a child, too?
4. If you could spend an evening with one of the following, only they'd be alive for that night, which would you pick, and who is it?
(a) a writer/poet who's now dead
(b) another historical figure who's now dead
(c) an ancestor who's now dead & whom you never knew
5. Which is more like or closer to God, math or love/sex? Feel free to make your answer a rant about how stupid the question is.
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2. You seem to be quite a reader. If you had to stick to one genre for the rest of your reading life, which would it be, and why?
3. Do how much time you spend online and how much of your psychic and interpersonal lives are spent interacting there (here) ever worry you? If so, what qualms do you have about it? If not, is there anything in the "real" world you wish you were more involved in?
4. As someone who also thinks of queerness as a behavior rather than an essence, I wonder whether you ever have a hard time figuring out how to---and whether to---respond to ostensibly sympathetic people who offer up an assertion that they don't believe it's a choice as an attempt to indicate that they're not with the political right, that they believe (as they think we believe) that we're born queer. Do you always or almost always come back with some queer-by-choice assertion?
5. Do you really think it's so terrible to eat out, or were you kidding or exaggerating when you wrote about that a while ago? Has your opinion changed at all since?
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maybe this afternoon---i'm hitting lj between big piles of work today
okay, here we go
2. If you had to stop being in your own physical self & suddenly be transported into one of the following people, whose life you'd have to lead as if you were him/her for a full year, which would you pick & why? (You could behave differently from how the current version of this person likely would, but it would have to be a gradual/credible transition.)
(a) Condoleeeezzzzzaaaaa Rice
(b) Pope Bennie the New
(c) Kim Jong Il
(d) Prince Charles
(e) Liza Minelli
3. Do you (like to) imagine yourself eventually partnering with a lover for a long-term committed relationship that spans a large portion of your life, or not? Comment.
4. Now that you've been gone for a while, what do you miss most about Math Reviews?
5. When are you moving, and how long after that will we be carpooling your way for the housewarming?
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I'm afraid my sexual encounter might not sound all that hot to anyone else, I get shy about writing that stuff actually.
Okay, onward...my son, who is 3 and a half, loves to collect rocks. The Butch (his mommy) got him a pirate treasure box about a year ago and it is filled with all sorts of rocks, pinecones and leaves. He has other, non natural treasures, but he always clears them out of that box so that what remains is just what the earth gave him. I think that's cool.
I'm worried that it will be too cool outside for your dinner and that you might get some really wacky or awful (in the vein of innards or something) main course. I had to make it a bit warmer in my mind and turn the dish into Fillet Mignon.
Also, I need to know - are there other diners because somehow I've got it imagined in an almost ghostly setting. I think I need more visuals if you wouldn't mind....
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I believe I will indeed be having the fillet mignon! (I'm terribly suggestible sometimes.)
What I was trying to get at with the setting & don't think I got out there is that it's smack dab in the middle of a bunch of medium to tall-ish buildings, and you can see windows and funny old corners and such as you look up---maybe L.A. isn't old enough for it to be there. The fence is the establishment's stab at carving a little quiet space back there, and blocking the view of trash cans & rats that you know are out there. In the old days there might be some laundry hung out on lines up above, but it's not that way any more.
(It tickles me that you kinda got into imagining the scene.)
Questions for you coming up next break I get....
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I'm not following form here, but I'd be delighted to answer questions from you.
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2. Can you tell me about one of your favorite episodes of Northern Exposure, or a favorite plot line or scene (or two or three), or which characters you particularly like & why?
3. What's your idea of a great day in the middle of an ideal 2-week vacation to one place? What place is that? Don't worry, you didn't have to travel to get there. You snapped your fingers & were transported, Star-Trek-like, to the get-away.
4. I loved your answer to
5. Look over the questions I've asked other people here & pick one you'd most like to answer. Then replace this text with that question, and have at it!