October 2008

Twenty questions I almost didn’t answer

Maleesha over at Binary Trash tagged me with a meme last week…and I almost refused to do it based on the second rule of the game (because saying I HAVE to do something is pretty much the fastest way to make me NOT do something).  BUT, because it’s Maleesha, I’m going to go ahead and answer the questions, but I refuse to tag anyone else.  If you like it, steal it.  If you don’t, then no harm done.

1. If your lover betrayed you, what will your reaction be?

I’ve been the betrayer and the betrayed.  I didn’t handle either with much aplomb.  Hell, both ended up being monumental fuck-ups.  If it happened again?  Who knows, the same as last time, totally different?  If we could predict life with that kind of accuracy, no one would need to go through the motions of actually living it.

2. If you have a dream you’d like to come true, what is it?

Full-Time professional writer.  Novelist to be precise.

3. Whose butt would you like to kick?

No one.  I’m bordering on pacifist.

4. What would you do with a billion dollars?

Spend it.  Trust me, it’s what I’m good at.

5. Will your best friend always be your best friend?

Probably not.  Deep friendships are essentially transitional and transitory for me.  At least on the “best” friend level…I have friends that I’ve known for decades.  But my closest friends now are people I’ve known for less then ten years.  I can’t predict what the future holds.

6. Have you ever been in love with two people at once?

I thought so at the time, more than once, and it did real damage to my ability to define and perceive love, both in me and from others.

7. How long would you wait for someone you really loved?

I can’t categorically say “forever” but I can confidently say “a really long time.”

8. If you won the lottery, would you quit your job?

Depends on which job I had when I won…

9. Who is on your celebrity top 5…you know, the ones…that if you ever had an opportunity…

As stupid as this is going to sound, this question always makes me uncomfortable.  I tend to think of celebrities as “people too” and therefore, I think of them as having pre-existing exclusive relationships…so my answer is based on the assumption that I’m single, they’re single, and everyone is free to act as they chose at this magical moment in time.

1) Kiera Knightly – Because she’s beautiful, and she’ll always be just a little bit Elizabeth Bennet and a little bit Elizabeth Swann (and I’m a nerd).

2) Lúcia Moniz (she played housekeeper/waitress Aurélia in “Love Actually”) – I’d learn Portuguese for this woman too.

3) Regina Spektor – If the most physical thing we did was talk and she sang to me, I’m pretty sure that would still be a night beyond imagining.

4) Parminder Nagra (Dr. Neela on ER and co-starred with Kiera Knightly in “Bend it Like Beckham”) – One of the most physically attractive women in the world.

5) Sadly, I ran out of ideas and had to think about this for a while.  I decided no. 5 would be Kendra Todd (Season 3 winner of “The Apprentice” and host of HGTV’s “My House is Worth What?”) – She’s attractive, intelligent and she got her BA in Linguistics.  She’s a hot nerd.  Seriously, that’s hot.

10. What sucks the life out of you?

Leeches and Mosquitos.  Never trust an insect with a proboscis or teeth.

11. How would you see yourself in ten years time?

This joke’s been overplayed, but I agree with everyone else that said visually/with my eyes/in a mirror/etc.

12. What’s your greatest fear/phobia?

Dying unexpectedly.

13. What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is?

She cracks me up and makes me think…good traits to have.

14. Would you rather be single and rich or married but poor?

Single and rich.  I’ve been married and poor, and that sucked on several levels.  If I only get to pick between the two extremes, I’ll take the money.  (notice it didn’t say anything about HAPPILY married…that kind of missing adjective scares me.)

15. What’s the first thing you do when you wake up?

Resist the urge to hit the alarm clock really REALLY hard.

16. Would you give all in a relationship?

I have.  Would I again?  I don’t know…hence the pensive nature of my musings on love and life and loss and starting again.

17. Is your career vitally important to you?

Depends on which career you mean.  Do you mean a specific career path?  Being a writer is vital, being a project-managing-tech-monkey-tax-dude…not so much.

18. Would you forgive and forget no matter how horrible a thing the someone has done?

I have once, I expect I’d be able to again.

19. Do you prefer being single or having a relationship?

I am tragically incapable of being single.  I’m really not good at it.  At all.

20. List 6 people to tag

Not gonna do it.

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The kind of morning that lasts all afternoon

I sufferer from a terrible stereotype, I’m a northwest liberal who wears Birkenstocks. 

In my defense, I’ve never worn socks with them that I can remember, but I wouldn’t put that past me either.  I’m prone to throwing on my trusty pair of Arizona (two strap) dark brown leather Birks and heading off into whatever weather is on the other side of my front door.

They go with everything: jeans, shorts, jean-shorts, some pairs of khakis…oh hell, who are we kidding, ALL pairs of khakis…they’re the perfect footwear.

Now, in point-of-fact I do NOT wear birks with my slacks to the office or client sites, but I have no compunctions about wearing them out in a casual setting…pretty much ANY casual setting.

What they just don’t go well with is a Northwest Winter.  For years, I’ve pretty much ignored the weather and just worn my Birks.  Hot and dry?  Perfect.  Rain?  no big deal.  Snow?  it doesn’t snow that much around here, and I have boots as a backup for those days anyway.

But there’s always this point in every year where the weather turns against me, where the rain sets in and the damp takes over.  I’ve never really cared before, but today was different.  Today things changed.

I woke up this morning and fall was in the air.  Falling cold and damp from the sky to be specific.  Fall was puddling up in the parking lot, and for the first time I can remember, I actually cared if I walked through it.

I commute about 35 miles (one way) in to my office, and from my driveway to the parking space, my wipers were on the top intermittent setting.  Not quite a mist, not really raining, just enough to make everything damp, slow up traffic, and deliver the deathblow to a tenacious summer.

When I opened the door of the truck and looked down, there was an inch-deep pool of fall, waiting to drench my Birks and make my hike to the front door a soggy mess.  For the first time in years, I regretted my loving commitment to my Birkenstocks.  This might not seem like much, but for me this is a watershed moment.

Birks have been a defining element of my self-image.  When I think of myself in the abstract, I think of myself in a pair of Birks. 

Comfortable.  Casual.  Understated.  Unpretentious.

At 9:11 am this morning, My self-image met my rational side, and my rational side said “grow up junior, you need a decent pair of shoes.”

I suspect this foretells more changes than just my footwear, but on my way home tonight I’m just gonna start with some new shoes.

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