Straight No Chaser

Queer Feeling, Having This Much Time

1. at this rate, are you going to heaven or hell?
hell, but this is a recent development. it's only as of this past two weeks or so.

2. could there be a terrorist attack in your area?
i live about seven minutes from d.c. city limits, and about twenty-five minutes each from the white house and capitol buildings. forty-fiveish from the pentagon. as crowded as it is, with all those big old buildings, i seriously doubt they'd take the time or effort to try anything here.

3. do you worry about food safety?
katrina sort of burst my bubble by pointing out that babies, not unlike puppies, have no reservations about crapping on furniture. this reminded me of the time we went to have lunch with one of my mom's old schoolmates, who now has about twenty cats in her extremely messy house. the cats were crawling all over everything--the furniture, the refrigerator and especially the countertops--to the point where my mom felt compelled to ask, "hey, don't you ever worry that they're going to get hair in your food?" the owner gave her answer--"no, they're very well-trained, they never walk around open people food"--just as this big, fat white one snaked directly across the uncovered casserole we were supposed to eat for lunch.

4. can bitchy behavior be self-justified?
bitchy is a subjective term, of course.

5. do you have over one hundred people on your buddy list?
i did before i switched screen names. there are only like forty-five on this new one, and even fewer actually know what the screen name is. i hate being online, these days.

6. do you relax when you are around animals?
not when they are noisy, bigger than me, begging to be played with or dragging their shit-covered asses across whatever it is i'm supposed to be eating for lunch. gerbils relax me. krystle's purple betta fish relaxes me. their worlds are so comfortingly self-contained.

7. would you like to be able to read thoughts?
yes, but not in an uncontrollable what women want sort of way. i'd love to be able to read them at will, and to unlearn whatever i found out if it was too weird or damnning or gross.

8. in your opinion, is it wrong to say "oh my god"?
thou shalt not take that name in vain, but i do it, like, seven hundred times a day. unfortunately. so then, maybe i was going to hell even before i completely compromised my very ethos.

9. do you like your strawberries dipped in chocolate or covered in sugar?
i actually prefer them plain, but given the choices, i'd have to choose chocolate. when marcus's mom was pregnant, she scarfed down ripe strawberries like they were trix, and now marcus is allergic. they make his face purple. it's like that rita dove poem, "history."

10. do you think any hip-hop songs have good messages in them?
definitely. uplift was the very idea behind hip-hop to begin with; the bastardization didn't start till much later. you can still count on most underground (blackstar and j-live types) for the same. anyone who thinks it's all just bitches and hos is totally mistaken. i refer you to my current favorite, j-lives "them that not." already knowing you won't look for it.

11. do you feel sorry for martha stewart?
no.

12. do certain swear words just roll off your tongue?
actually, my theory is that they're all sort of designed to stilt your speech. "fuck" is one that takes effort to produce. "shit" is a little more natural, but still takes concentration. "damn" is very hard for me; i almost never say it.

13. what hurts more, knife cuts or paper cuts?
i've never been cut with a knife, but probably paper cuts, because paper is, shockingly, paper-thin and sharper.

14. when you hug someone, do you wrap your arms around their neck or their waist?
with girls, i usually send one arm in either direction. with guys i trust, it's usually neck. guys i don't, waist.

15. do you use your mind enough?
too lazy to answer this to my own satisfaction.

16. would you rather own a parrot or a hen?
i have owned three cockatiels, which much more resemble parrots in terms of their mental capabilities and friendliness. a hen would be extremely stupid and annoying, and would cease to be cute after the chick stage.

17. do you know anyone who has been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder?
just that mark summers guy from nickelodeon. no one i know personally.

18. do you have any idea what you will be doing ten years from now?
hopefully something fulfilling and lucrative. hopefully not still attending school. hopefully something made slightly more difficult by the baby's cries. hopefully not flipping burgers or scrubbing floors.

19. do you pre-plan your meals?
i don't eat.

20. pet owners: ify our pet was a human, would it be gay or straight?
they would definitely be gay, as the first thing they tried to do, when we bought the little one, was hump each other. they worked through that misdirected instinct somehow, but they still travel everywhere in a menacing gang of two, and if we ever take one out of the room, the other stays behind shrieking like he's lost his everything.