Surprise!
Can I tag Tia with this meme, even if I haven't had time to do it myself yet?
Update: I may answer one question at a time throughout the day, slowly, in my ponderous way.
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Sometimes, when I'm writing, I getting into a zone where thoughts come freely and I lose all self-consciousness and feel pure joy of creation. That, and reading the stuff a couple months later and deciding it's not, in fact, crap. That is perfect happiness.
What is your greatest fear?
I don't want to say it, out of superstitiousness. I have been feeling a bit guilty about something, and hope I rectify it before it's too late.
What historical figure do you most identify with?
I'd like to avoid saying Madame de Sévigné, since she was sort of insane. I can't deny a sense of recognition there, though. Trying to think of someone more positive. I used to feel more of an affinity with Oscar Wilde than I currently do. (I have previously told the story of how my mother started to cry while watching this, because his more painful and self-defeating qualities reminded her of me). Wait, that's not more positive is it? Hmm. I also have a strong attachment to Louis MacNeice and keep his biography on a shelf near my desk wherever I'm working, as a kind of talisman. He's a low-profile, thoughtful sort, filled with quiet longing, who thinks about his N. Irish background a lot.
Which living person do you most admire?
I have been leaning rather heavily on Katha Pollitt this year, as a feminist voice of reason, articulating thoughts I'm having. I went to see her speak over the summer, and felt a great sense of appreciation for her writing and presence on the political scene. (I'm a little too aware of her weaknesses to feel unmixed admiration, however.)
I admire Margaret Atwood as well, for her writing, for her attempt to be accessible and relevant and suspenseful as well as erudite.
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
My indecision; the sense of paralysis that overtakes me sometimes.
What trait do you most deplore in others?
I like Sheila's answer there. I have discovered that I get very frustrated dealing with people who lack self-knowledge, especially when I'm acknowledging my own faults and biases, and the other person doesn't reciprocate at all. To be met by a cool, ungiving surface, when you're trying to be human about things.
What is your greatest extravagance?
It used to be travel, and pretty things, now it's probably books.
On what occasion do you lie?
Mostly for artistic reasons. I change details to make stories better.
What do you most dislike about your appearance?
I used to have a jokey magnet on my fridge with an image of a woman in 1950s lingerie, saying, "You will have perfect thighs in this lifetime." It was not really a joke.
What is your favorite journey?
I used to like arriving at the Paris apartment, the feeling of familiarity but not being quite at home, knowing the neighborhood well but still working at true intimacy, going immediately to get a cucumber sandwich and some mushroom salad at Gérard Mulot around the corner. Ok, I think I'm going to cry now....
What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Self-reliance maybe? I'm thinking of that line about how if you pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you fall over. But it's not so much about the quality itself being bad, but people thinking they have it when they are in fact in possession of a vast support system and calling it self-reliance.
Which living person do you most despise?
I have a relative I'm emphatically not fond of. Seems a bit harsh to describe her as The Most Despised Being, though. So: Dick Cheney.
Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
In fact. Just. Or something.
What is your greatest regret?
A phone call I didn't make.
What or who is the greatest love of your life?
I think I stopped at this question before because I didn't want to be trite or trivialize what's going on in my life right now. In general I have a problem answering personal questions these days, for this reason. (This may be why my blog has largely become about what I'm reading.) If I had answered this question in 2004 I probably would have said French Revolution boy, although that seems sort of sad. Does being half-crazed about someone when you are seventeen really count? Or is it totally illusion?
When and where were you happiest?
For form's sake, I'd like to answer this question in the same way. My old answer to this question would have been: October 31st/November 1st 1990.
Which talent would you most like to have?
I'd like to draw and paint and be crafty.
What is your current state of mind?
Abuzz with ideas.
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I can think of a few instances where I wanted things to go differently, but I don't know that I really want to change the way I am. I sometimes wish I were less sensitive, but then it comes in handy sometimes, or makes me see other people in a way I wouldn't want to give up.
If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be?
I wish I were closer to some of my Irish relatives.
If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what would it be?
person
If you could choose what or who to come back as, what would it be?
It might be interesting to be an Arab intellectual.
What do your consider your greatest achievement?
I'll let you know in a couple months.
What is your most treasured possession?
My Keith King sculptures.
What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Most of the scenes I'm picturing are African: being a subsistence farmer, being a child drafted into an army, having your community ravaged by AIDS, &c.
What is your most marked characteristic?
I'm told it's my laugh.
What is the quality you most like in a man?
I agree with Sheila: truly likes women.
What is the quality you most admire in a woman?
Insight.
What do you most value in your friends?
A kind of elasticity, and generosity, a willingness to discuss what we're actually thinking, rather than observing forms, while still being kind or thoughtful.
Who are your favourite writers?
I have been talking about Margaret Atwood and A.S. Byatt recently, and I mentioned Alan Hollinghurst in comments somewhere. I loved Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake. Zadie. Mary Gaitskill.
ho is your favourite hero of fiction?
I was fond of Telemachus. King Arthur in The Once and Future King. Helga the troll.
Who are your heroes in real life?
Artists.
What are your favourite names?
Nora. Liam.
What is it that you most dislike?
People who lecture you on things you're perfectly familiar with.
How would you like to die?
Driving a car at 90 million miles an hour. Skiiing off a cliff. Something active and glamorous.
What is your motto?
Some variant of darkest before dawn.
Update: I may answer one question at a time throughout the day, slowly, in my ponderous way.
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Sometimes, when I'm writing, I getting into a zone where thoughts come freely and I lose all self-consciousness and feel pure joy of creation. That, and reading the stuff a couple months later and deciding it's not, in fact, crap. That is perfect happiness.
What is your greatest fear?
I don't want to say it, out of superstitiousness. I have been feeling a bit guilty about something, and hope I rectify it before it's too late.
What historical figure do you most identify with?
I'd like to avoid saying Madame de Sévigné, since she was sort of insane. I can't deny a sense of recognition there, though. Trying to think of someone more positive. I used to feel more of an affinity with Oscar Wilde than I currently do. (I have previously told the story of how my mother started to cry while watching this, because his more painful and self-defeating qualities reminded her of me). Wait, that's not more positive is it? Hmm. I also have a strong attachment to Louis MacNeice and keep his biography on a shelf near my desk wherever I'm working, as a kind of talisman. He's a low-profile, thoughtful sort, filled with quiet longing, who thinks about his N. Irish background a lot.
Which living person do you most admire?
I have been leaning rather heavily on Katha Pollitt this year, as a feminist voice of reason, articulating thoughts I'm having. I went to see her speak over the summer, and felt a great sense of appreciation for her writing and presence on the political scene. (I'm a little too aware of her weaknesses to feel unmixed admiration, however.)
I admire Margaret Atwood as well, for her writing, for her attempt to be accessible and relevant and suspenseful as well as erudite.
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
My indecision; the sense of paralysis that overtakes me sometimes.
What trait do you most deplore in others?
I like Sheila's answer there. I have discovered that I get very frustrated dealing with people who lack self-knowledge, especially when I'm acknowledging my own faults and biases, and the other person doesn't reciprocate at all. To be met by a cool, ungiving surface, when you're trying to be human about things.
What is your greatest extravagance?
It used to be travel, and pretty things, now it's probably books.
On what occasion do you lie?
Mostly for artistic reasons. I change details to make stories better.
What do you most dislike about your appearance?
I used to have a jokey magnet on my fridge with an image of a woman in 1950s lingerie, saying, "You will have perfect thighs in this lifetime." It was not really a joke.
What is your favorite journey?
I used to like arriving at the Paris apartment, the feeling of familiarity but not being quite at home, knowing the neighborhood well but still working at true intimacy, going immediately to get a cucumber sandwich and some mushroom salad at Gérard Mulot around the corner. Ok, I think I'm going to cry now....
What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Self-reliance maybe? I'm thinking of that line about how if you pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you fall over. But it's not so much about the quality itself being bad, but people thinking they have it when they are in fact in possession of a vast support system and calling it self-reliance.
Which living person do you most despise?
I have a relative I'm emphatically not fond of. Seems a bit harsh to describe her as The Most Despised Being, though. So: Dick Cheney.
Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
In fact. Just. Or something.
What is your greatest regret?
A phone call I didn't make.
What or who is the greatest love of your life?
I think I stopped at this question before because I didn't want to be trite or trivialize what's going on in my life right now. In general I have a problem answering personal questions these days, for this reason. (This may be why my blog has largely become about what I'm reading.) If I had answered this question in 2004 I probably would have said French Revolution boy, although that seems sort of sad. Does being half-crazed about someone when you are seventeen really count? Or is it totally illusion?
When and where were you happiest?
For form's sake, I'd like to answer this question in the same way. My old answer to this question would have been: October 31st/November 1st 1990.
Which talent would you most like to have?
I'd like to draw and paint and be crafty.
What is your current state of mind?
Abuzz with ideas.
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I can think of a few instances where I wanted things to go differently, but I don't know that I really want to change the way I am. I sometimes wish I were less sensitive, but then it comes in handy sometimes, or makes me see other people in a way I wouldn't want to give up.
If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be?
I wish I were closer to some of my Irish relatives.
If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what would it be?
person
If you could choose what or who to come back as, what would it be?
It might be interesting to be an Arab intellectual.
What do your consider your greatest achievement?
I'll let you know in a couple months.
What is your most treasured possession?
My Keith King sculptures.
What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Most of the scenes I'm picturing are African: being a subsistence farmer, being a child drafted into an army, having your community ravaged by AIDS, &c.
What is your most marked characteristic?
I'm told it's my laugh.
What is the quality you most like in a man?
I agree with Sheila: truly likes women.
What is the quality you most admire in a woman?
Insight.
What do you most value in your friends?
A kind of elasticity, and generosity, a willingness to discuss what we're actually thinking, rather than observing forms, while still being kind or thoughtful.
Who are your favourite writers?
I have been talking about Margaret Atwood and A.S. Byatt recently, and I mentioned Alan Hollinghurst in comments somewhere. I loved Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake. Zadie. Mary Gaitskill.
ho is your favourite hero of fiction?
I was fond of Telemachus. King Arthur in The Once and Future King. Helga the troll.
Who are your heroes in real life?
Artists.
What are your favourite names?
Nora. Liam.
What is it that you most dislike?
People who lecture you on things you're perfectly familiar with.
How would you like to die?
Driving a car at 90 million miles an hour. Skiiing off a cliff. Something active and glamorous.
What is your motto?
Some variant of darkest before dawn.
posted by fortuna at 6:18 PM
27 Comments:
Oooh, that's actually a good one...
Do you want to be it? If so, I tag thee. With what little authority is invested in me as someone who is currently cleaning her house instead of revealing her soul.
Since cleanliness is next to godliness, you may be able to combine the two activities.
Not the desultory fashion in which I clean.
OHMYGODI'VEBEENTAGGEDWITHAMEMEIHAVETOLIEDOWNWHATAMIGOINGTODO.
The idea to tag you just came to me, as if in a dream. I have no idea where it sprang from.
"I have been feeling a bit guilty about something, and hope I rectify it before it's too late."
Me too. I'll have to buy him a new wooden leg.
What about that glass eye?
He won't really miss it. It looks much nicer in my fish tank. If he keeps yelping about it, I've got a marble that will do the trick.
Speaking of cleaning, I noticed a bunch of my scrunchies have ended up on the floor, and begun a new life, as cat toys.
And thus the circle of life goes on.
it would only be fair for you to take some of the cats' toys and convert them into scrunchies.
They are really all over the place, like the ruins of an ancient scrunchie civilization
scrunchie apocalypto
A friend of mine saw Apocalypto the other day. She said it was not good.
I can't imagine what went wrong with it.
What's going on with Mel, though? Is he a demented Peter Weir? Is he obsessed with the Spanish Catholic conquest of the Americas? Something else entirely?
That is, where did that movie come from?
As my friend summarized it, the basic message seems to be that it was good that the Spanish conquered the Mayas because they were so unspeakably brutal to each other (said unspeakable brutality being rendered in loving detail, of course). It seems like he's become an extreme apologist for anything Christianity gets attacked for.
Thanks. I have been wondering. I could just read some commentary about it, I suppose. But every time I see that trailer, I think, what is this about?
That and the dead languages, I think, was the project's appeal to him.
Yeah, the language. My friend said that was the only redeeming feature of the movie (well, that and the scene where a jaguar eats a guy's face).
Oh goody, face eating.
I miss your Paris apartment.
Vicariously, I mean.
Supposed there is a new Paris apartment, better than the last. But it's not a time-share thing, just a friend who rents it who is not there all the time. So far my mom's only been there once. But it's a seedling. A bud.
Supposedly.
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